Blood Hunt

Duel
1

Garreth struggled to stand, to pursue Lane, but could not even make it to his knees, only continue to huddle gasping and cursing…at himself as well as her. Dumb mick, all right. Damn right the maiden was powerful. When the hell was he going to get that through his thick skull. He had been kneed in the nuts before, but never with vampire power behind the knee. After this, he reflected, the pain of passing through a door qualified as no more than discomfort.

What felt like hours later he managed to drag himself up the car door and climb in. To sit huddled over the steering wheel. Despite how he hurt, he needed to concentrate on his next move. The lady of ice and steel was out there planning how to kill him. Possessing his radio enabled her to track him and pick where to attack. Being aware of that, however, he knew when to watch for her. The radio might even prove an advantage, luring her to him. By which time he hoped he had a way to deal with her.

Belatedly he became aware of his car radio…Doris calling his number. From the anxiety in her voice, she had been doing so repeatedly. “Seven, respond!”

He thumbed the mike button and tried to make his voice normal. “Seven Baumen.” Not succeeding. He sounded more in Maggie’s vocal range.

Doris shot back, “Seven, do you need assistance?”

Duncan radioed, “What’s your twenty?”

“The cemetery. I’m 10-4.” That came out better. “I lost my radio and just returned to the car after failing to find it. Do you have something for me?”

“Come pick up a radio first.”

Since Doris saw how he limped up the hall to the radio rack, he gave her a quick lie. “I was in foot pursuit of a skeleton and Grim Reaper and tripped and landed astraddle one of those narrow old tombstones. I’ll be fine. What’s the call?”

Duncan had taken the one originally intended for him, but now they had a mother anxious because her fourteen-year-old daughter, who was supposed to be home from a Halloween party at ten, was now almost an hour late.

On the way there, Garreth swung by his place for a quick drink of blood. By the time he reached the call address — a block and a half from the high school, he noted — he walked normally.

“I may know where your daughter is.”

They drove to the gym with the mother shaking her head. “You think Cici crashed the wedding reception? I’ve brought her up with better manners than that.” But when they stepped inside, she said, “Oh.”

“Do you see your daughter?”

She pointed at a Wonder Woman and mini-skirted witch dancing to “Witchy Woman.” “That’s her and her girlfriend Tanya.”

Garreth made his way onto the dance floor and tapped Cici’s shoulder. “It’s midnight for you, Cinderella, and probably you, too, Tanya.” He pointed at Cici’s mother by the door.

The two girls exchanged looks of utter disgust and humiliation but left with Cici’s mother. Though to Garreth’s amusement, Mom seemed reluctant to go.

Before leaving himself, he had the French maid from the buffet table cut a slice of cake for Doris that gave her a whole section of castle wall with a window. Turning toward the door with it tucked in a small box the French maid produced from under the table, he met Anna’s daughter Dorothy.

“You should have come in when you brought Mada back,” she said. “You missed her singing.”

Lane came back here instead of lurking out in town tracking him by radio?

“I never realized how good she is. She sang that song that ends with: ‘These precious days I spend with you.’ Jason and Julie and almost every other couple were hugging and kissing, tears in their eyes. Then she brought the house down with that song Peggy Lee sings, ‘Fever.’”

After hearing her sing in San Francisco, then almost snare him into her Grand Tour, Garreth believed it. “Maybe she’ll sing again. Where is she now?”

Dorothy glanced around. “Around somewhere. After singing she started going from table to table visiting. I’ve never seen her so…friendly.”

A strategy to establish her presence here, he bet. While the reception remained in full swing, and it looked a long way from winding down — even the glimpses he had of Anna and Mary Catherine across the dance floor caught no evidence of them folding soon — everyone would assume Lane was somewhere in the room. But if he planted a suggestion for the crowd to call her for another song, could she appear?

“Baumen Seven.”

So much for trying that.

Doris wanted him to check out a possible prowler at Hammond’s.

On the way he dropped off her cake, but only nodded acknowledgment of her beaming delight as he thought ahead to the greenhouses. Yes, all that glass made a tempting target for vandals tonight. It also made an excellent site for Lane to ambush him.

Nerves strung tight, he worked his way around the buildings and through the bushes behind them, with his radio turned down to a whisper, peering into the mist for any movement. Listening hard for breathing, footsteps, for a whisper of branches moving unnaturally. Sniffing the air for Lane’s perfume. He saw no indication of either Lane or prowlers; smelled nothing suspicious; heard only Doris sending Duncan to a Country Club Drive address for reported vandalism. Then as he neared the front of the greenhouses again, he heard shrieks and a roar of exhaust pipes up 282. Scott and company still out and about.

Back in the car and able to relax, he radioed, “No contact.”

“Now you have a 10–47 in Golden’s parking lot entrance.”

Collisions could be expected tonight if people did not drive carefully. At least this one reportedly involved only property damage, no injuries. It was probably too much to expect the accident to involve Scott and his Trans Am.

At the Golden Bowling Alley, Garreth found not only no Trans Am but no accident at all…and no sign of vehicles that could have been involved in one. His nerves snapped taut again. The drivers might have left after examining examined their vehicles and deciding the damage was not worth involving the police…or wanted to avoid being brethalized. Or maybe Lane made the call to lure him here…even though he saw no way for her to ambush him. The mist did not reduce visibility enough to keep him from seeing her sneaking or charging toward him.

Still, climbing out the car to examine the ground at the parking lot entrance for skid marks or broken glass, he watched for her. On the car radio, Duncan reported no vandalism at the Country Club Drive address.

A crank call…or one intending to isolate him by sending his backup to the other end of town? If so, Lane made no use of the opportunity. Nothing came out of the mist at him but a Toyota Corolla leaving the parking lot.

Again he reported no contact.

While he parked under a light with the car doors locked and wrote up preliminary reports on Hammond’s and here, he listened to Doris send Duncan to the high school.

Ten minutes later Duncan came on the radio laughing. “Be on the lookout for a Friday the 13^th Jason costume, stolen off the person of the wearer outside the high school gym. Victim is unable to describe his assailant because he is unable to remember the assault, just waking up in the catering truck in his skivvies.”

Garreth’s pulse jumped. Lane’s work! With the reception for an alibi and a disguise to hide her identity, she was free to stalk him. “Did the victim have a real machete with his costume?”

“Negative,” Duncan answered.

At least she could not attack him with that. He ought meet with Duncan — avoiding radio traffic Lane would hear — and warn him to approach anyone in a Jason costume with extreme caution, that the individual behind the hockey mask was many times more dangerous than the Jason Voorhees character.

Only, would Duncan believe that? Not likely. So he was probably safer thinking they had a mere prankster. Then if he encountered her, she might just incapacitate him…not kill him as she surely would if he pulled a weapon and acted macho.

“Baumen Seven. Possible 10–96 at the sale barn.”

Another prowler. Maybe for real this time. Maybe Lane.

With every nerve buzzing, he pulled out of the bowling alley lot and up 282 onto River Road…leaving his headlights off, turning his radio down almost to inaudibility. Building up enough speed to just coast into the big parking lot between the sale barn and the rodeo arena to the south, then wince at the crunch of his tires on gravel. To avoid the lighted front of the building, he parked along its side, then turned off the dome light and pulled his ignition key to prevent an interior light or key-in-ignition warning as he opened the door.

Once out of the car, he stood motionless, peering into the mist, listening, sniffing. Nothing moved in the visible area. He heard nothing…smelled nothing but the scent of old manure in the stock pens, and…aerosol paint.

Could he have a merely human prowler, here to tag the sale barn walls?

Garreth cautiously worked his way around the building, circling well out of the light pools in front. Though if Lane were here she saw him anyway. His skin crawled at his visibility while vaulting the six-foot fences. Better risk that, however, than the greater vulnerability while sliding between the pipe rails and possibly hanging up his gear belt. But nothing came at him. Nothing moved but him. He found no paint on the building or fences, and even the paint odor disappeared.

Until he came around the last rear corner and approached his car. Then he smelled it again. Where did it come from?

A slow turn, sniffing to locate the source, came to a sharp halt facing the car. His nerves cranked tighter. The tires on this passenger side had been slashed. Someone was here. Probably watching him. Lane…had to be, for him to detect no one.

Garreth eased he gun out, shielding the action with his body, and holding the gun down along his leg, resumed walking toward the car. The question was how effective it was against Lane. Could a wound incapacitate her long enough to effect a capture?

But the idea of using a firearm brought an icy chill as he thought of the shotgun in the car. Legend said destroying a vampire’s nervous system killed him…so blowing off his head with a shotgun would certainly accomplish that. What if Lane broke into the car for the weapon while he was on the other side of the building.

To his relief, on reaching the car he saw it still in its overhead rack.

Then a stir of air brought an stronger scent of paint. From a definite direction this time…south. He peered across the parking lot into the mist and saw movement by the rodeo arena. Followed a second later by a flat thrum and hiss.

Garreth reacted with all his cop’s training and instincts…leaping for cover around the front of the car. Before he reached it, pain exploded in his right shoulder. Force like a powerful punch shoved him backward even as momentum carried him behind the car. The gun slipped from numb fingers as he fell heavily, bringing even more intense pain that radiated all the way through him, setting his testicles throbbing again and tearing a scream from him. Grabbing his shoulder, he discovered why. To his shock, an arrow protruded from his jacket. The feathered end must have hit the car bumper as he fell, wrenching the shaft sideways in the wound.

An arrow. A narrow wooden stake. Fear flooded him.

Pressing against the sale barn wall, he jerked the arrow out, clamping his jaw to keep from screaming again as the shaft grated under his collar bone. The arrow came free in a spurt of blood…and more fear. No metal tipped it. Instead, the shaft had been sharpened to a point. No doubt now that Lane was his assailant. He remembered those blue ribbons in Anna’s album that Lane won for archery.

He pressed the jacket against his shoulder, using the thick pile lining to soak up the blood, then picked up the gun again with his left hand…glad his father taught him to shoot with either hand. Gritting his teeth against pain, he pulled his feet under him and crouched listening.

Gravel shifted almost inaudibly…the sound coming toward him, angling to his right.

He peered around that side of the car. Yes, there she was, a shadow emerging from the mist. He had a clear shot, but shooting left-handed meant losing his cover…either by standing or stepping from behind the car. He had to shoot fast, then.

He jumped sideways, crouched, hoping she would not expect that, and took aim.

“Stop!” Lane called. “Don’t move.”

To Garreth’s horror, his finger froze on the trigger. Like being at Wink’s back door all over again, without the fire.

Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Put down the gun, lover.”

The words dragged at him like daylight. Grimly, he fought them, fought to pulled the trigger. He had a perfect shot. Shoot! Shoot! But his body refused to obey. With all his will trying to fire, his hand slowly opened and dropped the gun.

“You’re weak. You hurt, poor baby.” The shadow came closer. “You just want to curl up and wait for the pain to go away.”

No! He had refused to give up in that alley and damn if he would do so here!

Jason Voorhees appeared out of the mist in heavy boots, dungarees, and a ragged barn coat…carrying a bow with another arrow nocked, the bowstring half drawn. Now Garreth understood the paint smell. Between the gym and here, Lane had stopped to increase her invisibility by spraying the white hockey mask black.

Could two play the power game? Panting in pain, he stared hard at her. “You don’t want to shoot me.” He stayed crouched, presenting as small a target as possible, protecting his chest. The body armor stopped bullets but not thin, penetrating weapons like arrows. He poured his will at her. “Put…down…the bow. Lay…it…down.”

She continued drawing back the bowstring. “You don’t have the experience to use that against me. Now, sit up,” she crooned. “Give me a good target so it’ll be over quick.”

No. No! his mind screamed…while his body slowly, inexorably straightened.

She smiled. “That’s a good boy.”

Desperately he fought to look away, fought to focus on his pain, to become angry, but nothing worked.

She held him, pinned him with her eyes like a butterfly specimen.

Off behind her exhaust pipes roared, accompanied by haunted house shrieks. Scott Dreiling’s Trans Am tore into sale barn grounds from River Road.

Lane glanced around.

Free! Garreth snatched up the gun and rolled sideways. From flat on his back he fired at her chest.

Her jerk told him the shot found its mark…yet she immediately steadied again, as if nothing happened.

He had no time to wonder how that could be. The pipes roared louder and gravel spat at them as the Trans Am shot past. In the middle of the parking lot it swung into donuts. On the third one it braked.

Scott shouted out his window, “What’s this! Officer Mikey lying down on the job! I’ll have to report you. And you’ve got four flat tires. So now…catch me if you can.”

The passenger, whose voice he recognized as Scott’s buddy Kenny Leeds, shouted, “D-man, he looks hurt! Shouldn’t we — ”

The roar of the Trans Am’s motor drowned the rest as it gunned back out the way it came.

With Scott gone, Garreth saw Lane had, too. No, a shadow hovered near the stock pens by the tracks. Lane called, “You need a head shot to stop me with lead, lover. Come and try again.”

Then she crossed the tracks and disappeared west. Into Pioneer Park? Another good place to ambush him.

He awkwardly holstered the gun, then fingered his radio. He ought to call in. Attacking him provided a legitimate reason for a full manhunt, and for treating her as armed and dangerous. But it put every officer involved at risk. They would never believe how dangerous she was, or that no bullet short of one in her brain could stop her. The very thought sent him back to Wink O’Hare’s apartment watching Harry bleed. He refused to let that happen again. Injured or not, he had to deal with her by himself.

Besides, despite what Lane claimed, vampire healing should kick in soon to stop the pain and bleeding, right? Very soon, he hoped, starting after her. Every step jolted his shoulder and brought a new wave of pain. He forced himself to keep moving.

Garreth tried putting himself in Lane's place, to guess her next place to ambush him. Did the bow have the range to shoot him from the bandstand?

Not the bandstand. Footsteps sounded on his left…moving away. He saw her leap the wall bordering the park’s south edge. Fuzzy light from a streetlight showed her heading down Landon.

She did not intend to ambush him here? Where, then? She must have some plan, but what? Maybe just to keep him following until he collapsed. The way he felt — light-headed, nauseated, shaky as he crawled over the wall after her — that would not be much longer. If he gave up. Not an option. He had to catch her.

“Baumen Seven.”

Garreth groaned. Not now, Doris, please; not now. Tell her he was busy? He tried his voice first, and decided that croak was worse than not answering.

Doris called him again, then after a pause: “Baumen Five. 10–19 ASAP!”

Garreth used speculation to distract himself from his pain. She urgently wanted Duncan at the station. Because he failed to answer? If that, why the request to come to the station rather than sending Duncan to Garreth’s last reported location?

Those questions sustained him to Walnut. Ahead, a streetlight at the Pine intersection shone bright enough in the mist to show Lane there and turning left. He forced himself into a jog. He must not lose her.

Down at Oak, a patrol car raced across the intersection toward Kansas, light bar flashing. Duncan heading out in a hurry…and turning north up Kansas, from the sound of his engine.

He reached Pine to find Lane had disappeared. Had she gone to Kansas? No, he saw nothing of her when he reached there. As much of the street as he could see was deserted…except for the expected vehicles in front of the Brown Bottle and VFW hall. Maybe Lane had taken to an alley. A hand on the wall of the Pioneer Grill helped steady him jogging back to the alley behind it.

The radio spat, “Five to Seven!” Duncan.

If he answered, Duncan would want to know his location.

He saw nothing up the alley, but turning to check the alley across the street…yes! Something moved in the mist beyond the post office. Hunching low, he dodged across the street.

“Seven, respond!”

After flattening against the post office wall, he peered around the corner into the alley. The shape seemed to be hesitating between the post office and Wiesner’s Flowers. Waiting for him to appear…backlit by the Pine streetlights?

“Five, what’s the situation?” Doris asked.

“The car’s where the Leeds kid said. Tires flat. No Seven.”

So Scott, or at least his buddy, did report what they saw?

The pitch of Duncan’s voice climbed. “There’s an arrow with blood on it…and bloody hand prints on the car.”

Garreth slid around the corner into the alley, hugging the building and searching for something to use as a shield. If only trash downtown went into metal cans with lids like those of homeowners, instead of into dumpsters.

“Seven! Respond!” Doris barked. “What’s your status!”

With every area agency hearing this, answering could bring not just Duncan but deputies and who knew else.

“Seven, what’s your twenty!”

A new voice came on…deep, rasping. “He’s in the alley between Pine and Oak.” Lane, disguising her voice. Had to be. But what the hell was she up to?

“Identify yourself,” Doris came back

“I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. Your world at least, Inspector,” Lane called in her normal voice, off the radio, and moved away at an easy jog.

A jog! A pace that let him keep up. She had to be leading him into a trap. Trying to think where and what kind, he followed…keeping close to the post office wall, then staggering hunched past the post office loading dock and employee parking lot into cover of the florist’s dumpster.

Automatically he also noted the roar of pipes coming south on Kansas…passing…slowing for the turn onto 282. Accompanied by another vehicle that sounded like a truck. Idiots, racing tonight just because the street had no traffic!

Not that he was any smarter, he reflected as he edged around the dumpster…following a stone cold killer into an unknown trap with no effective weapon.

A car engine roared behind him and headlights lit him up…swinging as the vehicle fishtailed into the alley. A glance backward caught a flashing light bar. Duncan…who must have floored it all the way down from the Kansas entrance of the sale barn lot.

The patrol car braked just short of hitting Garreth and Duncan jumped out. “Mikaelian, what the hell — ”

Garreth waved him back. “Stop! Get back in the car!”

Duncan ran into the headlight beams. “Jesus, man! You’re covered in blood and — ”

Garreth backed away. “Damn it…get the fuck out of here!”

“I am become Death!” Lane rasped from down the alley. A bowstring thrummed.

Duncan went down, screaming, an arrow through his thigh.

Reflex drove Garreth toward Duncan, pulling off his tie to use as a tourniquet. Only crossing the beam of one headlight did he realize he was making himself a target. Though the distance between him and Duncan had to mean Duncan was the intentional target. Still, he killed the headlight above Duncan by smashing it with his elbow before dropping to his knees beside Duncan.

Whether or not that reduced their visibility, Lane did not shoot again. She just called back in the rasping voice, “See if you can sniff me out. The end is nigh.”

Duncan jerked the tie away from Garreth. “Leave me!” he gasped. “Get that son of a bitch!”

For several seconds Garreth wondered if he could stand again, his legs felt so weak. But the thought of Lane escaping forced him onto his feet and after her.

Behind him and on the radio, Duncan shouted, “Officer down,” and the location.

Crossing Oak into the next alley the meaning of Lane’s words struck Garreth…explaining the game she had been playing and why she shot Duncan. She mean to kill him at the sale barn, but thanks to Scott’s interruption, she changed plans to look for another victim to witness the fact that a psycho was shooting police officers in Baumen. Which signaled the game was over. Her next shot would be for the kill.

Only where did she lie in wait for him? Not behind a corner of the Lutheran and Methodist churches on the back side of the block, but maybe she planned to jump out at him from the rear door of Toews Hardware or Hartzfeldt Liquor? Yes, opening those doors would set off alarms, but who was there to respond? Or she might fire down on him from a roof.

He flattened against the wall of the hardware store where he was behind the door if it opened and looked up to check the roof line. The certainty was that she had a plan. He needed one, too. He needed a plan and he needed a weapon other than his gun — shaky as he felt, he could never make that head shot — and he needed them fast, before anyone else became involved and endangered. Radio traffic had Duncan reporting a wounded Mikaelian and Doris reassuring Duncan Fire Rescue was on its way. Garreth heard the siren coming up Oak. A deputy radioed he was close to the north and on his way in, too.

Staring across the alley at the churches, one possibility for a weapon occurred to Garreth. But he needed to make Lane follow him for a change…and manage to stay ahead of her. So where was she?

She said, sniff her out. He stepped away from the wall and followed the faint but still detectable odor of paint. Past the hardware store, past the liquor store…to the Driscoll Theater’s fire exit. She had gone in there…through a closed door. He would have to pass through, too.

Garreth gritted his teeth.

Wrench!

The pain of passage turned to a screaming anguish in his shoulder that burned through his chest and down his arm. He stumbled through the vestibule between the exit and curtained archway into the theater proper and dropped to hands and knees, half from pain, half to use the seats for cover until he could move more steadily. Reaching his weapon meant passing through two more doors. Could he manage that?

Come on, man! Don’t be a wimp!

Gritting his teeth, he pulled his feet under him and braced to run up the near aisle through the William Tell Sitting Duck Shooting Gallery. The creaks and moans of the old building hid any footsteps or breathing, but…she waited somewhere in the twilight of his night sight with a final arrow ready for him.

A bowstring thrummed. Above him. Balcony!

Garreth dived up the aisle. The arrow sliced into the carpeting behind him.

“That’s the trouble with a bow, Lane,” he called. “There’s no silencer on it. Catch me if you can.”

He ran for the lobby and the front door, heart thundering in terror. He wore a target on his back and Lane had all the advantages: a weapon, expertise with it, and no injuries.

Wrench!

He lurched forward across the sidewalk, fighting a scream, fighting to stay on his feet. Don’t fall, damn you; don’t fall or you’re dead!

He staggered across the tracks onto the far side of the street.

The bowstring sang its deadly song behind him. Fire burned across his right ribs.

Garreth stumbled. He struggled half a dozen steps on feet and his uninjured hand but managed to avoid a complete fall, then he was up again, moving as fast as he could. Only to slip twice more on the increasingly slick street, once scraping his palms as he came skidding down on them and a knee. Nerves sent muscles over his ribs and in his shoulder into spasm. He gasped in anguish…kept moving, not daring to slow down, not daring to look back.

Castle Drugs loomed before him. He hit the door — wrench — and landed heavily on the floor inside. His head spun and he felt sweat running down his face. On elbows and knees, to avoid leaving any bloody hand prints, he crawled to the counters along the left wall and down behind them to the display case where he saw Rosie Wiest working two weeks ago.

Inside the display case sat a heavenly host of ceramic angels and cherubs and a row of boxes holding rosaries.

Garreth pushed a handle on the sliding door behind the case using his knuckles to avoid leaving fingerprints. Unlocked. He slid the glass open and pulled out a box. Though Lane must be seconds behind him, he moved other boxes to hide the gap before crawling around the end of the display case into the nearest aisle. Giving thanks the shelves still ran parallel to the front of the store and provided the intruder concealment he warned Mrs. Wiest about. Listening for any sound up front, he removed the rosary from its box and hid the box behind bottles of mouthwash on the bottom shelf, then he pushed to his feet and opened his jacket to examine the wound in his side. The pointed end of the arrow protruded from his shirt, having passed though his body armor, but despite the pain and warmth of blood spreading down his size, did not feel stuck in him. Maybe just caught his skin?

Footsteps whispered up front.

Garreth’s heart lurched. He peered around the shelf. Lane stood just inside the front door, an arrow ready in her bow, her head tilted, listening. Garreth forced himself to breathe slowly and softly.

“Hello, Inspector,” Lane said. “I smell you. I smell your fear. Are you badly hurt? I warned you how a diet of animal blood affects your recuperative powers.”

He needed to get close to her…behind her. Come to me, blood mother. He groaned softly.

Lane’s head turned, hunting the source of the sound. “Come out, come…out.”

He yelled at himself in his head to drown her voice. Don’t listen, don’t listen. Make her listen. He whimpered.

Lane moved forward, almost soundlessly now…past the checkout counter…past the photo counter. “Stop…hiding.”

He groaned.

She passed the batteries to the rosary display case.

Breathing as little as possible, ears straining for sounds of Lane’s approach, he waited. Steps whispered closer.

Garreth grabbed a dental floss package and tossed it over the shelves into the next aisle. It clattered on the floor.

He heard her spin…step into the aisle.

Gathering all his will, Garreth made himself move…leaping around the end of the shelves. With his arm and ribs screaming with agony at lifting his arm, he tossed the loop of beads over her head and mask and jerked it snug.

Lane reached for her neck, snarling, dropping the bow and arrow she had ready for him. Then her hand touched the crucifix in the middle of the rosary. She shrieked…the high, tearing sound of someone in mortal agony. Garreth needed all his will to keep the rosary tight.

“Garreth, let loose!” Lane cried. “I can’t stand the pain!” She clawed at his hands. “I’ll do whatever you want…anything…just take this thing off me. Please. Please!” She began sobbing.

Dizziness swept through him. His knees trembled, making him fight to stay on his feet. Was this capture too late? Had he become too weakened to hold on to her?

He thought of Duncan shot down, of Mossman and Adair’s drained bodies…of Harry bleeding almost to death on Wink O’Hare’s floor. Of his own shattered life. The maiden is powerful. Grimly, he held the rosary tight.

“We’re going to walk out of here and back to my place.” He hoped.

“Yes. Yes! Whatever you want, if you’ll just take this thing off! Inspector, it’s burning me! It’s a thousand times worse than the barrier around dwellings. Help me. Take it off! Garreth, please!” Lane screamed.

Wrench!

Only his grip on the rosary kept him on his feet…and kept him standing while he kicked in the drug store’s door to fake a break-in and explain the presence of a bow and arrow on the floor. The street spun around him. He shivered with cold, a sensation he noted in dismay. Could he hang on long enough to reach his place?

Lane started screaming. “Help! Someone help me!”

Garreth jerked the rosary. “Shut up!”

She subsided into raspy gasps. Her hatred beat at him. He angled for Maple Street. Whoever had gone to Duncan’s aid would initially concentrate activity at the north end of the block near Oak. If he forced Lane past the south end, then stuck to alleys and back yards, they should reach his place without being seen.

And then what?

He saw only one answer. But the deaths had to look like an accident, and it had to destroy their bodies. A fiery crash of the ZX should do. It would solve everything. Lane would be punished and he pay for her blood with his. He could stop fighting blood hunger; Grandma Doyle would be relieved; Brian could be adopted in clear conscience.

They crossed the tracks. Lane reached for his hands, but each time her nails touched his skin, Garreth jerked the rosary and she subsided with a gasp of anguish. He gritted his teeth, fighting dizziness and weakness…fighting to keep his hold on her and his balance on the slick paving.

Up Kansas, motors roared. Garreth looked around to see Scott’s Trans Am gunning out of the mist, just in front of a pickup jacked high on its axles. He sucked in a breath of relief. He did not have to take her all the way home.

Before he could debate the rightness of the action, or change his mind, he caught Lane’s chin with his good hand. A quick jerk snapped her head around backward on her neck with a crack like a gunshot. Too fast for her to know what happened, he hoped. Then he shoved his hands under her arms and leaped directly in the path of the Trans Am.

It had no chance to stop. Scott tried. Brakes screamed…but his tires found no traction on the paving and the Trans Am spun end for end. Garreth kept moving, pushing himself and the slack Lane between vehicle and a solid old light pole in front of the theater…until hurtling metal wrapped itself sideways around the pole, Lane, and Garreth. The pickup piled into the Trans Am, further crushing them and the car against the pole.

Wrench.

Garreth found himself rolling on the sidewalk, shoulder and side burning with pain, arrow now driven out through the front of his jacket.

“No!” he howled. He was not supposed to pass through the pole! He was supposed to die in the crash and burn with Lane.

Then he realized there was no fire, only the smell of spilling gas.

Lurching to his feet, Garreth scrambled for the driver’s door. The crash had jammed it. He smashed the window with his radio and pulled out the dazed boy. “Run!” he yelled at the pickup’s driver. “It’s going to blow!”

Dropping the radio, he searched Scott’s pockets. Good. There were the cigarettes and lighter Garreth expected to find. Flicking the lighter, he tossed it under the Trans Am and hauled Scott backward.

Flame engulfed the car and quickly spread to the pickup and the light pole.

Violet ran out of the hotel with a fire extinguisher.

Garreth reached for it. “I’ll do this. You take the boys in the hotel and call the fire department.”

He contrived to fall, with the extinguisher “coming apart” in his hands, spewing foam on the sidewalk instead of the flames. After that, he and the people who materialized out of the hotel could only stand and watch the car, and Lane’s body, burn.

An unexpected sense of desolation swept him. In spite of his outrage at her crimes, in spite of burning hatred for what she had done to Harry and him, her death hurt. Pain closed his throat…grief for the child whose torment had driven her to seek the power of the vampire life and use it to vent her hatred on humanity, for the waste of an intellect curious and clever enough to theorize what made vampires, for the voice that would never sing enchantment again.

The fire department arrived in time to save the light pole and keep Lane from burning to the bone, but what Garreth saw amid the metal wrapped around her, told him her hands had charred beyond recovery of fingerprints and the hockey mask looked melted onto her face. An autopsy, if they bothered with one, could establish her as female but forty-eight years too young to be Mada Bieber.

Reassured Lane could not be identified, Garreth felt as if his bones melted. He faded back against the theater ticket booth and slid down to sit on the sidewalk.

In moments feet gathered around him. Voices began exclaiming about his bloody jacket and the arrow protruding from it, began asking questions.

He ignored them. God he was tired…too tired to answer, too tired to feel suicidal any longer, too tired even to feel pain. He closed his eyes and shut out the world.