Mike shakes his head as if feeling a sudden pain. Seeing his distress, Ted moves closer to Edward and draws his gun. “I’m going to ask you two to step to the corner of the room,” Ted says.
Edward stares at the gun, smiles, then tries to catch Ted’s eye.
“There is no need for the gun,” he says softly.
Ted blinks, sways slightly on his feet. “No?” he mumbles.
“Don’t listen! They’ll kill you!” I shout.
Mike recovers his wits swiftly. He draws his gun and points it at Edward. “Raise your hands! Now!”
Edward spreads his hands as his smile turns cold. Once more he gestures to me. “We are not your enemy. She is your enemy.”
“Get your arms up!” Mike orders.
Edward refuses to raise his arms. So does his partner. They stare at Mike and Ted, who has shaken off the psychic attack at least enough to keep his weapon pointed at them. Yet Ted is struggling. He’s pale and his hand is shaky. Mike is more in control.
Still, I dislike the direction things are going. There are too many variables I can’t control. On my far right, the women agents have not surrendered to the witches, but the agents have yet to draw their guns. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already under the spell of the evil women.
I see now why the four didn’t hesitate to enter the ballroom. The secret service don’t intimidate them. They still see this contest as four against one. The surrounding humans don’t factor into their thinking. Edward makes this clear when he responds to Mike.
“I do not take orders from you,” Edward says flatly.
“Call for backup,” I say firmly.
Mike speaks into a pin on his lapel. “This is G49. We have a code red. I repeat, a code red. Request immediate backup.” He shakes his gun at Edward. “Put your goddamn hands in the air or I’m going to put a cap in your head. I’ll count to three. One . . .”
Edward is amused. “Count to a hundred. Call a hundred men. It will not change a thing.”
Mike cocks his gun. “Two . . .”
Edward and Thomas simultaneously lash out with their feet, kicking away Mike’s and Ted’s handguns. In their position, I would have done the same. But I’ve anticipated their move and respond in turn.
Switching into hyper mode, crouching down, I sweep under Thomas’s and Edward’s legs as they kick away the agent’s guns. Caught on only one leg, my foes are especially vulnerable, and they hit the floor on their backs. But they’re well trained. Even as they fall, they reach for their weapons.
After my sweep, I end up standing beside Thomas and kick away the handgun he draws. Unfortunately, Edward has also drawn a gun, and even though he’s lying on his back, he has it pointed at my head.
“Stay,” he says with authority.
It’s difficult, even for me, to dodge a bullet at such a short distance. Also, I suspect Edward isn’t carrying ordinary ammunition. Chances are his bullets are enhanced with gunpowder sprinkled with nitroglycerin, if not something more exotic. Plus his reflexes are above normal. If by some miracle I manage to escape his first shot, I know his second will find me.
Five thousand years. Thousands of encounters with death.
And I cannot for the life of me figure out what to do next.
But maybe Krishna’s cloak of protection still holds.
I hear a shot. Red blossoms in the center of Edward’s chest.
He drops his gun and lies back on the floor.
Everything happens so fast, in a dimension where mortals are not usually of any help. In the brief moments I’ve spent with Mike and Ted, I have come to admire their professionalism, but I didn’t expect them to be able to protect me. Certainly Thomas didn’t believe Mike had a backup weapon. I never noticed it. I suspect the agent didn’t see my move. His instincts just took over and he fired. Good for him.
But I’m far from safe. It’s still three against one, and I’m not armed. The death of Edward doesn’t slow Thomas. So I’ve kicked away his gun. He pulls out another and aims it at my head. I only have to look in his eyes to know he’s not interested in my surrender.
If he’s as fast as Claudious, I don’t have time to kick his gun out of his hand. Fortunately, his shoulder is only a third of the distance from the tip of my boots. I strike there, with all my strength, and jerk my head to the side. The blow is brutal. It causes the muscles in his upper arm to explode, even as his passing bullet flips my hair from my ear. Blood pours through his coat. The nerves to his hand must be severely damaged. Yet he manages to hold on to his gun. He fights to get off a second shot.
I use the slight delay to my advantage. Going briefly airborne, I slash out with my left foot and knock away his gun. As my left leg recoils, I do a scissor kick and strike his temple—the thinnest part of the skull—with my right foot. I hear multiple cracks and know splinters of bone have fragmented into his brain. His eyes fall shut, and I don’t believe they will ever reopen.
All this transpires in a matter of seconds. Nevertheless, other secret service agents are beginning to look over. Nothing like a couple of gunshots to catch someone’s attention. The agents focus on the two guys on the floor but not on me, not yet. I estimate I have a narrow window of ten seconds to stop the others. Then I’ll probably be arrested.
My eyes seek the witches. Like their male partners, they’re well trained. They shifted position while I struggled with Edward and Thomas. I don’t see them immediately, but I note that all three of the female agents they were talking to are on the floor. Since I didn’t hear any gunshots from their direction, I assume the witches simply knocked the women out.
My scan reveals nothing. But when I kneel to collect Edward’s gun—the one gun I haven’t kicked away—I hear a gunshot and feel a bullet split the air where my head was an instant before. What blind luck, to dodge a round I didn’t even see coming. I know more are on their way.
I leap straight into the air, rising high, ten feet off the floor. I’m trying to dodge the next bullet, but I have another reason for going airborne. While in the air, I present an easy target, however, I also have a better view of the crowd. I can spot the witches even if they have taken cover behind a group of people.
I spot one of the assassins in a crowd as she shifts her aim from the floor into the air. She’s the one who just shot at me. I return the favor and shoot back. We’re separated by a hundred feet, and she uses the distance to partially dodge the bullet. She moves fast—my bullet is lucky to catch her at all, in the shoulder rather than in the head.
The round has plenty of kick to it. I was right to assume they have brought along fortified bullets. My shot spins the witch around. Again, I take aim at her head.
Then I hear it, the faint click of a trigger being cocked.
It comes from behind. By fleeing to opposite sides of the room, they’ve made themselves difficult targets and even more efficient killers. Even as I whirl in midair, I know it is too late, that I will take a bullet, it’s only a question of where.
I catch sight of the second witch the instant she fires. We’re fifty feet apart, and I see the bullet as it heads straight for my face. I manage to get my left elbow up, but I know the power of these rounds, and I know my arm isn’t thick enough to protect my head. Yet I’m Sita, the last of the vampires, and I don’t die easily. As the bullet tears into my flesh, I simultaneously jerk my arm downward and redirect the bullet into the floor.
The audacity of my move startles my opponent. She hesitates, for an instant, she even blinks, and I unload two shots in her direction. One blows out her heart. The other cracks open her forehead.
I crumple as I hit the floor, from pain and cunning. The last of the two witches is wounded but still dangerous. I want to present the smallest target possible. However, as I turn toward her, I see she’s made a line for the door. Drops of her blood litter the floor. I see them, smell them, and even when she vanishes I can still hear her hurried gait as she descends the steps outside the hotel. She’s followed the frightened w
ave of humanity that’s finally thrown off its shock and fled the ballroom. She may come from the same stock as Claudious, I think, but she doesn’t have his courage.
Once more, I’m standing still. I’ve returned to the real world.
Mike and Ted take a step toward me.
Mike gestures to my arm. “You’ve been shot,” he says.
“I’m all right,” I say.
Ted shakes his head in dismay. “Does someone want to tell me what just happened? Because I sure as hell don’t know. All I saw was a blur of Ms. Matrix here after those guys kicked away our guns.”
“Quiet,” Mike says to his partner as he steps to my side. I’m not only bleeding, I’m holding a gun, and there are dozens of secret service agents all around. None of that appears to bother Mike. He speaks in a low voice so that only I can hear. “Who are you?” he whispers.
“A friend. I came to stop these people.”
“Who are these people?”
“Monsters. Seriously.”
“Were they going to kill the president?”
“They came here to kill.”
“Did one of them escape?”
“Yes.”
He frowns. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”
“Let me go after her. I’m the only one who can stop her.”
He looks around. “My superiors won’t allow that.”
“For some reason, I get the impression you’re in charge of tonight’s security,” I say.
“That’s true.”
“Then if you and Ted say it’s okay, I can go. No one will stop me.”
He considers. “That I can well believe.” He turns to Ted. “We’re letting her go. Don’t say a word.”
Before leaving, I kneel beside Edward and take his second gun along with extra clips and his weird watch. I also find a pair of unusually strong handcuffs in each of the men’s pockets and borrow them as well.
I’m grateful Teri and Matt have not yet arrived. And the president. I suspect after all these fireworks, the secret service is going to move him to another hotel. Chances are Teri will not get to meet him.
I cannot worry about that now—I have to capture the witch. She’s my only connection to these people, and I’m not going to spend the next ten years of my life looking over my shoulder and waiting for another attack. I want it to end tonight.
I leave the hotel. No one stops me.
FIFTEEN
From the sound of the witch’s pulse, I know she has procured a car and is driving south at high speed. There’s a Porsche Carrera—a favorite of mine—parked down the street from the hotel, and I break the lock and hot-wire the engine and am soon in pursuit.
I have two points of focus as I drive. One, I pay close attention to the road. With my supernatural reflexes, I’m a better driver than those who compete at a professional level. But even I cannot exceed the limits of the vehicle and the terrain I happen to be on. Fortunately the roads are fairly deserted, and I’m able to keep my speed above a hundred miles an hour.
The pulse of the witch’s heart is my homing signal. Listening closely, it tells me a few things about her. Her wound is worse than I thought. My shot must have torn an artery. She’s still losing blood. It also tells me that these creatures, although strong, don’t possess my regenerative powers. Claudious killed himself so fast, I was never sure of this fact until now.
My elbow heals as I drive.
The witch is three miles ahead of me when she stops at what I assume is the train station. Over the span of thirty seconds, I follow her with my ears as she boards a train and leaves the station. The train’s departure is too much of a coincidence. They must have studied its schedule ahead of time, in case they had to flee, or in case they had me in their grip and wanted to get me out of the city before I could summon help. They might be operating under the erroneous belief that I have allies, I don’t know.
The layout of the roads doesn’t help me. I lose several minutes finding a freeway that’s heading the right way. I suspect the witch’s heading for the southern tip of England, which means she’s probably trying to get out of the country. There are two ways she can escape—by driving under the English Channel or else taking a ferry across. I doubt the hovercraft operates at this time of night, but I’m not sure.
I push the Porsche up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour, its maximum speed. It doesn’t take long before I have a policeman on my tail, but he can’t catch me, not the way I’m weaving in and out of traffic. Still, the highway isn’t busy, and for the most part I’m able to keep the accelerator to the floor.
The witch’s train comes to a halt, and I listen as she departs and runs in the direction of what sounds like the harbor. The train station is adjacent to where the ships leave for France, and it’s looking more and more like that’s her destination.
I have to assume she knows the schedule of the ferries. It worries me. If she gets on a boat and it leaves the dock before I can arrive, I could be forced to follow by driving beneath the Channel. I doubt even my ears can track her with that much earth and water overhead. This is probably a part of her plan: to slip outside my radar, then make an unexpected move and vanish.
The watch I have taken from Edward continues to glow a dull green. It’s an interesting device, and I would like to study it at leisure, but I don’t trust it. They could be using it to track me. I throw it out the window.
I take time to examine the handcuffs and their matching keys. I don’t recognize the alloy but know they brought them for me. For most of my life, I’ve had the strength of at least ten men, a factor that slowly increased as I aged. Fifteen years ago, when Yaksha and Kalika both died in my arms, they gave me their blood, and my powers increased another tenfold. However, despite my strength, I can’t break these cuffs. It’s a sobering thought. If they do manage to get them on me, I will be their captive.
The alloy is a product of a technology mankind doesn’t possess.
Just like the acid that vaporized Claudious.
Damn it! The ferry leaves the instant the witch boards it.
I’m five minutes behind. I park at the harbor and rush to the water’s edge and watch as the ship recedes over the black water. There’s a good chance that driving under the Channel I can beat the boat to the other side and be in position to welcome her in France. Yet the prospect of losing track of her continues to haunt me. If she thinks I can no longer hear her, she’ll do something drastic. For example, she could jump in a lifeboat and paddle back to Britain.
The cop who was chasing me pulls into the harbor parking lot. He has brought backup. I ran from the car so fast—he doesn’t know it was I who was in the vehicle—but he’s taken the Porsche into custody. A pity, the owner kept it in good shape and I enjoyed its speed. However, it makes my next decision easier.
Standing on the edge of the dock, I remove my coat and boots. I keep only one of Edward’s guns—I assume it’s waterproof—and the two sets of handcuffs. Already, the ferry’s a fading silhouette in the night. I estimate its speed at twenty miles an hour. I can swim faster than that, for a short time, but even I will eventually tire. Plus each second I delay just makes the chase that much more difficult.
I dive off the dock and into the water.
Vampires dislike the cold. I suspect it has something to do with the fact we’re related to yakshinis, mystical serpents. In the same way lizards or snakes are slowed by cold, it weakens me. But two factors come to my aid. August is the hottest month in Britain, and the island’s climate is moderated by what’s called the North Atlantic Drift—a remnant of America’s Gulf Stream, which flows up the East Coast before turning out over the Atlantic. For these reasons, the water is surprisingly warm, and I’m able to swim faster than usual.
It would be easier if I was naked, but I’m reluctant to give up my gun and the handcuffs. The witch may be wounded, but she’s armed. There’s even a good chance she can hear me coming. It’s hard to hide the splashing sounds I’m making. If she star
ts shooting as I near the boat, I want to be able to shoot back.
I swim mostly freestyle, but occasionally alternate my strokes to use different muscles. The switching helps conserve energy.
Thirty minutes after leaving the dock, I close in on the boat. For a short while I let myself drift, catching my breath, listening. My foe has moved to the rear of the ship. She definitely knows I’m coming. That means she’ll soon be taking aim at me in the water.
I decide on a bold strategy, and a difficult one. I hyperventilate for three minutes and then dive beneath the surface. I can hold my breath a long time, but it’s harder when I’m running or swimming flat out. Yet the security of having thirty feet of water overhead is hard to resist. The witch can’t shoot through such a barrier. Also, I suspect she won’t be able to hear me coming. For the first time tonight, I’ll fall off of her radar, even though I’ll still know exactly where she is.
A funny thing happens as I near the boat. A herd of dolphins swims by and acts like they would like to play. I love dolphins, and my telepathic gifts have taught me they are far more aware than mankind realizes. But I admit I’ve never been able to decipher their complex language.
I think it’s because they are conscious, but not the same way humans are conscious. It’s almost like they live in a constant dream state. When I tune in to their minds, as I do now, I feel a profound peace. The feeling is one of floating, of drifting on invisible currents in a vast sea humans can’t see with their physical eyes. I suspect we have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to such remarkable animals.
They appear to sense I’m aware of their thoughts and pull up beside me. It takes me a moment to recognize their offer. They know I’m tired and hungry for air, and they offer to tow me toward the ferry. There’s a big one on either side, almost pressing against me. I just have to reach out and hold on. Ah, it’s such a relief to rest. Again, it’s silly, I know, but I feel as if Krishna is trying to help me. It’s impossible not to believe in a benevolent creator while swimming in the company of such loving beings.