“You mean Area 51?”
“If that’s what it’s called.”
Dr. Wong. The red mercury. A spaceship. Now all the clues meshed together and the conspiracy unraveled into one continuous thread. The nymphomania had been caused by the red mercury brought by the Roswell UFO. Red mercury supposedly produced by Rocky Flats. This was the mysterious material that contaminated the women.
Was this true? How could it be? Project Redlight painted the entire story as a hoax. Even Gilbert Odin dismissed the red mercury. I was energized by the need to confirm the truth. I tensed my arms against the chains but the steel links were too strong for my wrists.
Dragan returned the bottle to the box. Petru latched the cover and put the box back on the floor.
“This is all new to me,” I said, feeling the warmth drain from my crotch. My aura returned to its orange color.
“Would any other vampires know?”
“No.”
“Then what’s your concern with Rocky Flats?”
“Because we vampires have questions of our own. Every time there’s an outbreak of nymphomania you scumbags show up. None of us ever connected the outbreaks to the UFO. This news about the red mercury is a complete surprise.”
Dragan crossed his arms. “Interesting.” He shrugged. “And now that you finally know, too bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means that I was planning for a long night interrogating you. But since I know more about this than you, why waste time? Petru, get the stake and mallet.”
Petru grasped the items from the table.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” I reminded Dragan.
“That was when I thought you had something important to share, which you don’t. Now it’s more useful for me to watch you die.” He motioned to the table and the bowl of blood. “When I have more questions, we can easily catch another vampire.”
Dragan unzipped my barn coat and took the stake from Petru. The wood reeked of buckthorn and I shrank back. The myth was that buckthorn resin burned us vampires like the most potent of acids.
Dragan cupped his hand behind my neck to hold me still while he dragged the pointed end of the stake across my shirt to the left of my sternum. He wiggled the tip into a gap in my ribs, directly over where my heart would’ve been. “It’s time that I send you to Hell. Give my regards to Satan, you bloodsucking serpent.”
CHAPTER 28
I HAD ONLY SECONDS before Dragan would hammer the stake through my rib cage. My mind clutched desperately for an opportunity to escape annihilation.
Dragan stood to my left and Petru to my right, both men even with the opposite ends of the pipe I was chained to. The slack in the overhead cable let me pivot with the pipe across my shoulders. My feet had enough purchase on the floor for me to get a strong swing. Certain that they were about to finish me, and that I had no choice but to die at their leisure, the vânätori relaxed their guard.
Wendy and I made eye contact. Her big frightened eyes begged for help.
I’m trying, baby.
I swung the left end of the pipe toward Dragan and cracked it against his skull. His knees buckled, and he fell over the table, upending it. The candles tumbled to the floor and landed in the trash littering the room.
I immediately jabbed to the right and caught Petru across the nose. One hand came up to protect his face and the other readied the mallet to hit me. His eyebrows cinched angrily and his eyes narrowed. Our eyes locked long enough for me to hook him with vampire hypnosis.
Teodor yelled, “Don’t look into his eyes”-but too late.
Teodor started for me, dragging Wendy by her chain tether. She pulled against him and kicked him across the back of one knee. His leg folded and he collapsed. The electric baton fell from his hand and clattered on the floor. She jumped on him and bashed him on the head with the steel links binding her wrists. Teodor writhed and bellowed in pain. He jerked his arm around wildly, backhanded Wendy and knocked her off him. He staggered to his feet.
I jangled my wrist chains and commanded Petru, “Undo these.”
He clasped the key ring clipped to his belt loop. Blood dripped from his swollen nose. His obedient gaze remained fixed on mine. He groped for the lock on the chain and inserted the key.
“Hurry up,” I said.
The chain rattled loose. My feet sank to the floor and my legs bore my entire weight. I was free. My wrists and neck ached where the links had pressed into my flesh. I snatched the mallet from Petru. “Hold still.”
He did as I commanded and stood comatose before me. I walloped him on the forehead, leaving a circular imprint on the front of his skull. His face quivered, and his eyes rolled up into their sockets. He teetered like a plank and fell straight back.
Teodor was almost on me. Wendy picked herself up and lunged at him. Teodor spun about and grasped the chain around her neck. He shook her and cursed. “I’m going to kill you, demon witch.”
“You first.” Wendy flailed at him with kicks to his shins.
I flung the mallet at Teodor. Sharp pains zippered up my back where Petru had whaled on me with the rebar.
The mallet bounced off Teodor’s skull. His head wobbled and he fell toward Wendy as if they were going to embrace.
Dragan lay next to my feet. I reached around him, picked up my pistol where it had fallen and took aim at Teodor’s back.
I couldn’t risk shooting him without endangering Wendy. At this range, the bullets would go straight through him and into her. Grasping Teodor by his collar, I smacked him on the temple with the butt of the SIG-Sauer. His eyes bugged out. He gasped and went slack. Wendy released her hold and backed away to let Teodor slam face first against to the floor.
I scrambled to find the keys on Teodor’s belt and opened the locks on Wendy’s chains.
She kicked the unconscious Teodor in the head. “Sayonara, you son of a bitch.”
Fire burst from under the table and a wave of smoke rolled against the ceiling.
I pulled Wendy away. “Teodor will get his later.” Together we moved for the front door and cupped our hands over our mouths to filter the smoke. The ache in my back cramped my right side and I limped beside Wendy.
A gunshot boomed, then again, and again. Dragan lay prone by the space heater. He jerked the trigger of a revolver and sprayed the air with bullets.
Shoving Wendy toward the door, I drew my pistol up and loosed one round at Dragan.
I missed.
But the bullet ruptured the propane tank of the space heater. A fiery blast knocked Wendy and me onto our backs. The SIG-Sauer bounced out of my grasp. Smoke swallowed us. Flames licked my skin. I didn’t want to die. Not now. Not roasted like a chicken. Both of us scrambled onto our bellies and crawled through the acrid smoke, bumping against the walls and furniture until we found the front door. We rose to our feet, staggered outside, and sucked in the clean, cold night air. Heavy snowflakes from the blizzard melted on our skin. The pain in my back ebbed and I hobbled alongside Wendy.
We scooted clumsily across the icy snow to the corner at the right and started down the hill. A mound of snow covered my Dodge.
Wendy folded her arms tight across her chest and hunched her shoulders to keep warm. A plume of vapor trailed from her mouth. Her flimsy scrubs didn’t offer much protection from the chill.
I took the keys out of my pocket and peeled off my barn coat. I offered it to Wendy. Without breaking stride, she shoved her arms into the sleeves.
Behind us, flames and smoke poured out of the garage. The three vânätori crawled, wheezing and coughing, out the back door and into the fenced lot behind the garage.
“Damn, these guys are as hard to kill as cockroaches,” I said, feeling the threat of danger return. I wished I hadn’t lost the SIG-Sauer.