The vampire leaped out of her light even as she brought her pistol around to shoot him. He moved with an awful grace, his limbs contracting and then extending like finely machined springs. She heard him land with a gentle thud, somewhere to her left. She spun on her heel, tried to follow him with her light, but she had lost him.
From very close by she heard him laugh again.
She tried desperately to remember her training. She needed to try to control the scene. That was something they’d taught her in the state police academy, in almost every class she took. You didn’t run into a dark alley until you knew who was waiting in the shadows. If someone was shooting at you, your first instinct should not be to return fire but to find cover.
Arkeley had taught her that sometimes those rules didn’t apply when you were fighting vampires, but at that moment she was willing to trust time-honored police procedure. She kept her back to the wall and started moving slowly to her left, toward the door to the control booth. If she could get a barrier between herself and the vampire, well, that would considerably extend her life expectancy.
She put her foot out, let it touch the floor. Another foot, another step. She reached across her body with her right arm—her gun arm—and waved the barrel of her pistol into empty space. The door was still open. That—that was good. She turned slightly and started to slide herself into the doorway.
Instantly cold hands descended on her shoulders and pulled her back. She screamed, a full-throated shriek of terror, as the vampire hurled her through space. She plummeted through the dark, sensing rows of seats passing beneath her, her arms and legs spinning, trying to find something, anything to hold on to.
She collided belly first with a pile of coffins and stopped screaming at once. All the air in her body was forced out as if she’d been wrung out by a giant hand. Her stomach burned with pain and her legs felt battered.
Desperate, panicked, she rolled over onto her back and pointed her flashlight back the way she’d come, back toward the top of the amphitheater. The vampire was right there, moving toward her, his hands up as if he intended to jump down right on top of her. She brought her gun hand up, but found it empty—the Beretta had fallen out of her grip on the way down. She threw the arm across her face instead in a purely reflexive gesture—there was no way the arm would protect her against the vampire’s attack. She waited out the split second it would take him to land on her, to kill her, waited it out with nothing but fear inside her, waited—and waited—
From up above she heard a surprised grunt. Then a noise like leather being torn. The vampire roared, but still he didn’t pounce on her, still she was alive. She decided to risk a quick glance.
Up top, on the walkway behind the topmost row of seats, the vampire was waving his arms furiously. It looked like it was waving for her to come help it.
Its chest was torn open. The skin hung away in flaps from exposed ribs that glistened with clotted blood.
Her light went right into its chest cavity and she saw—without understanding—that its heart had been torn out.
It collapsed with a mewling noise she found almost piteous.
She could find no sign of what—or who—had destroyed it.
88.
I have changed so. It feels wrong, somehow, even to hold this pen with my new white hand. The pen is a tool of the living & I have put behind me all such things. Tonight we are at rest, though it is unwelcome, & unsought for. Tomorrow surely we will be loosed. It is quiet here, though they say a battle raged all day. I was asleep, & heard nothing of it. I do smell the smoke now.
My heart longs to go out into the night, to fight, & serve again. I have gained new powers, both of my body, which walks again (& I thought it never possible!), & of the mind. Such things I see now. I see ghosts, Bill, everywhere now about me, yet am not much frightened. Like me they have passed the vale of tears, & we are as comrades…
One power I now possess, which is to raise the dead. Just as you were raised. I will not do it. Yes, even if I am ordered to do so…I cannot bear to see the faces torn, the bodies broken, as yours was.
Beyond this I promise no mercy, to any man I meet.
Tomorrow there must be BLOOD. I did not know, before, that I would dream of it, & in such quantity, & of its taste.
—LETTER OFALVAGRIEST (UNPOSTED)
89.
It was over. For the moment. Caxton was alone again, still alive, lying on a pile of broken timber that had once been some vampire’s coffin.
She had no way of knowing if Glauer was still in the room or not. She flashed her light around the corners of the amphitheater, looking for any trace of him, but found nothing.
She lay back for a while, uncomfortable but unwilling to move. Her body protested every time she lifted a limb or even moved her eyes too rapidly. She could be dying, she thought. The fall onto the pile of coffins had hurt—a lot—and for all she knew, she had internal injuries. She might have punctured a lung, or she could have a cerebral hemorrhage just waiting to bleed out if she tried to sit up.
You’re fine, she thought. It was what Arkeley would have said. He wouldn’t have even bothered with looking her over. In Arkeley’s world if you were capable of standing up, then you were capable of continuing the fight. And if you weren’t spurting blood from a major artery or looking down at a compound fracture of your own femur, then you were capable of standing up.
She sat up slowly, determined to have at least a few more seconds when she wasn’t under the immediate specter of death. She brushed splinters and dust off her arms, then she used her hands and knees to roll up to a standing posture. She hurt all over, but nothing was broken or even sprained. She was exhausted beyond all human capacity, but adrenaline would keep her going for at least a little longer.
She was alone, it was dark, there were enemies all around—such things were too abstract compared to her aches and pains to be even worth thinking about.
She waved her flashlight across the floor until she’d found her Beretta. It looked alright. She checked the magazine and found four rounds inside. She had an extra clip in her coat pocket. Her patrol rifle lay next to her on the floor. There were six rounds in the clip, big .50 BMG bullets capable of passing through an engine block. Those six rounds were all she had left for that weapon.
She’d started out with two flashbangs, but those were gone. She had a can of pepper spray, a big four-ounce police model, but she had never actually tried pepper spray out on a vampire and she had no idea if it would incapacitate one. She didn’t know if it would even annoy a vampire.
She had no idea where to go next.
An answer came, then, though she knew better than to trust it. The red sign over one of the fire doors came on, flickering red. It saidEXIT, and it dazzled her eyes when she looked at it.
She’d played their games before. She knew the only sane course of action was to lock herself in the control booth and wait for morning. She also knew that was not an option, not when she still had work to do.
She headed for the door markedEXIT and took one last look back at the auditorium. The red buzzing light lit up the whole room, once her eyes had adjusted to its demonic glow. She couldn’t see Glauer anywhere, not in the seats, not down by the map, not cowering in one of the long shadows. She called his name a couple of times but got no answer. So she turned to the exit and put her hand on the push bar.
The corridor beyond was dark, but a light shone at its far end. She moved forward slowly, trying not to make too much noise. There could be anything down there, she knew, anything at all. As she approached the light she saw it was another exit sign. She moved toward it, trying not to hurry, and lifted her patrol rifle just in case.