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  She heard Heidi screaming again as she struggled to get out from under the big body. Alarms went off in her head as she realized she had dropped the gun. She wrenched her head to the right and saw it on the floor within grabbing distance. She groped for it but an instant before she could snag it again it was scooped up by the sole surviving male member of the family.

  He aimed the gun at her face.

  So this is it, she thought. I’m gonna die now.

  At least she had tried. She had gone down fighting rather than running off like a coward. And she had done a good thing by ridding this world of most of these goddamn psychopaths. She stared into the face of her probable killer and remembered the others had called him Blaine. Yet another alias, most likely.

  “Don’t do it, Blaine.”

  Okay, maybe not.

  She saw Blaine’s hand shaking as tears leaked from his eyes. More genuine human emotion. Still so strange from the likes of someone so evil. Just seeing those tears made it all worth it. Even her own death. This prick should suffer, at least a little. His forefinger trembled on the trigger. His need to kill her was a palpable thing, an almost living presence there in the room with them.

  Heidi moved into view to stand next to him. She wrapped a hand gently around his own and eased the gun’s barrel away from Lashon’s face.

  A strangled sob tore out of his throat. “She has to die!”

  “I know, I know,” Heidi said in a soothing tone. “Shush now, baby.” She stroked the back of his hand in an oddly intimate way, considering they were brother and sister. “She will die. I promise you that.” And now one of the wickedest, most insidious grins Lashon had ever seen curved the girl’s mouth. “But I’ve got something special in mind for this murdering cunt.”

  Blaine choked back another sob. “Y-you do?”

  “I do, baby. I do.” The wattage of that insane smile cranked higher still. “We’ll deal with her down in the cellar. Now roll that slab of dead beef off her.”

  Blaine did as instructed and Lashon sucked in a great, gasping breath as the weight of the corpse was removed. But this instinctive physical relief was short-lived as Heidi squatted on her haunches to leer down at her.

  “I bet you feel pretty good about yourself, huh? Going all kill crazy like that on my family. Bet you feel all fucking badass.” She dropped to her knees and leaned even closer. “Yeah, you do, I can tell. But let me tell you something, bitch. That’s all gonna go away once you’re hanging from a meat hook in the cellar.”

  Blaine did a strange thing then.

  He giggled.

  He sounded like a demented little girl. For some reason, Lashon found this as disturbing as any of the admittedly unnerving things Heidi had told her.

  Oh fuck. Maybe I made a mistake after all…

  Heidi stood up. “Give me that.” She pried the gun from Blaine’s dangling hand. “Now drag this whore down to the cellar.”

  Blaine grabbed Lashon by the ankles. A moment later he was dragging her through the archway, back into the kitchen. She clawed for purchase on the floor, her fingernails skidding over the grooves between the tiles as she futilely sought to impede Blaine’s progress. Next, she tried kicking her feet free from his hands, but this effort proved just as ineffective. She heard Johnny voice some unintelligible sound of protest as Blaine dragged her across the floor. It earned him a slap across his ruined face from Heidi.

  She screamed at him, “Shut up, you fucking Frankenstein!”

  And then she laughed.

  Lashon lifted her head and saw that she and Blaine were headed toward a closed door in a far corner of the kitchen.

  The cellar door.

  And, beyond it, the meat hook Heidi had promised was waiting for her.

  Lashon’s eyes filled with tears as Heidi hurried past her and opened the door for Blaine, who dragged her through it onto a wooden landing. He jerked her to her feet and positioned her at the edge of the landing.

  Then she screamed as he threw her down invisible stairs.

  Down into a deep, deep darkness.

  The next thing she was aware of was pain.

  A lot of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sound of many sirens approaching fast kept getting louder, but thus far no flashing lights had appeared in the wide four-lane street beyond the club’s large parking lot. That would be changing any moment now. Monroe hoped like hell their escape window would remain open long enough to get gone from this place before that happened.

  He followed Melissa at a fast trot through the parking lot, banging his hip more than once as they wove between the long rows of parked cars. The black Rolls Royce Phantom was parked diagonally across two spaces at the far end of the last row of cars, which abutted a concrete divider separating the dance club’s lot from the parking lot of a small strip mall. As they neared the car, Melissa put on a burst of impressive speed, becoming a barely visible blur zipping through the night.

  When she became visible again, she was standing next to the driver’s side door. Monroe heard a tinkling of safety glass as she punched a fist through the window, reached deep inside with both hands, and pulled the screaming, bleeding chauffeur back out through the window. Monroe figured she would spend at least a moment grilling the traitorous human servant for information regarding details of the assault on the mansion. They would need to know in advance as much as possible about what was happening in order to formulate an at least remotely viable counterassault plan.

  But Melissa had a different agenda, apparently.

  She slammed the pleading chauffeur against the side of the vehicle and used a fist again to punch a hole through something—this time straight through the man’s abdomen, which yielded to the blow with shocking ease. She dug around in his abdominal cavity for a moment as his screams rose to higher and higher registers. Then her bloody fist—wrapped around a length of intestine—emerged from the gaping hole in his gut. She pulled at it and pulled at it like a woman unraveling a spool of thread. That was gruesome enough, but she wasn’t finished yet. She looped the man’s guts around his neck twice and then shoved the end of the length of guts into his mouth.

  Monroe’s mouth hung open as he watched this bit of insanely over-the-top depravity.

  God…damn…

  This all happened in a space of seconds. She looked like a demon at work. Monroe supposed she was a demon of sorts. Which kind of made him one, too.

  She tossed the chauffer’s corpse aside and looked at Monroe. “What are you staring at? Let’s get out of here.”

  Monroe closed his mouth. “Right. Of course.”

  They got in the car. The keys were still in the ignition. Melissa cranked the engine to life, put the car in reverse, and punched the gas. The car lurched twice as its front and then back wheels bounced over the chauffeur’s body. Melissa’s face was a mask of intense concentration as she shifted gears again and put the gas pedal to the floor. The Phantom’s tires squealed loudly as they patched out with the car’s front end aimed at the sidewalk. The Rolls Royce bounced over the curb and onto the street, earning blasts from the horns of several angry motorists as they crossed the lanes of moving traffic. Melissa paid it all no mind as she cranked the wheel hard to the left and got them pointed in a more or less straight direction again.

  They were speeding away as Monroe glanced at the mirror on his side and saw the first flashing lights appear in the distance. He gulped. There were a lot of them. He looked away from the mirror and saw more flashing lights approaching from the other direction. Melissa never slowed down as she blew by them all. Monroe clutched the door handle in a death grip as the Phantom’s speed soared to felony-level recklessness.

  He may even have screamed a time or two as they rocketed through a busy intersection without slowing. This time, he heard more than the horns of agitated motorists. He heard a crunch of metal. And then another. And another. Another glance at the mirror showed a column of flame rising into the air behind them.

  Ho
ly shit.

  “Um…I think there may be a cop or two on our trail now. You’re sort of leaving behind an unmistakable path of carnage.”

  She kept her eyes on the way ahead. “I don’t care.”

  “Right. Of course not. I’m just sayin’…”

  Now she looked at him, frowning. “What?”

  Monroe frowned, too. “Um…what?”

  “You said you were just saying. Saying what?”

  Monroe closed his eyes a second.

  Give me strength.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Nothing. Just a stupid expression. Look…I know we’re off on a serious mission-of-vengeance type deal here, but, uh…any idea what we’re gonna do when we actually get back to the mansion. Do you have, like…a plan?”

  Her gaze went to the road again. “My plan is to kill as many fucking humans as possible before they take me down.”

  Monroe kept frowning. “Oh. Well…that works. I guess. By the way, how you dealt with the chauffeur…that was some hardcore fucked-up shit.”

  She glanced his way again, arching an eyebrow this time. “Problem with it?”

  Monroe gave his head a brisk shake. “No. No no no. Hell no. All I meant was wow, that was totally fucking crazy. But in a cool way, of course.”

  “I was very angry.”

  Monroe turned his head aside a moment so she wouldn’t see the reflexive roll of his eyes.

  No shit, lady. You were like the fucking She-Hulk or something there. On crack.

  He looked at her again. “You really think we’re gonna get killed trying to stop these people?”

  “Probably. From what we know, they had the numbers and the element of surprise. It may already be too late to do anything about it.”

  Though a part of him—that still-lingering remnant of his humanity—wanted very much to help Kira, the colder, vampiric side of him felt ready to embrace the notion of futility. Maybe if things looked sufficiently hopeless once they arrived back at the mansion, he might stand some chance of convincing Melissa to abandon any thought of retaliation and take off with him. They could start over again somewhere else, maybe establish and build a vampire colony of their own, similar to the one reigned over by the rich old vamp.

  Except…hold on…why follow the blueprint set here at all?

  It was kind of a weird deal, after all.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Make it fast. We’ll be there soon.”

  “Why in fuck did Victor keep a nest of attractive, young-looking vampires in that fucking weird underground adult-playpen type of place?”

  “Why not?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

  She glanced at him, frowning again. “Is this really the kind of thing you want to know right now? We could be dead—really dead—in a matter of minutes and you want to discuss trivial things?”

  “Forget I asked.” Monroe’s eyes got wide and he cringed backward into his seat. “Look out!”

  Melissa’s head snapped back toward the road. She saw what was coming and jerked the steering wheel to the right just in time to avoid a full-on rear-end collision with a stalled Camry. The Phantom’s fender, instead, clipped the Camry’s rear bumper. The Phantom careened out of control for a fraction of a second as it shot toward the guardrail beyond the road’s right shoulder. She wrestled the car back under control with amazing quickness. Those vampire reflexes at work again. Monroe felt certain a human driver would have gone crashing through the guardrail to the embankment below.

  Melissa’s hands were gripped very tightly around the steering wheel now, her eyes locked on the road in front of her. “How about you keep the chatter to a minimum from this point on?”

  “Good idea.”

  They drove on in near silence for maybe twenty minutes. The only sounds were the hum of the high-precision engine and the roar of the wind audible through the shattered window. Somehow Melissa had shaken their police pursuers.

  During the silence, Monroe did some thinking. He had a theory on the underground vampire nest, one he was relatively certain hewed pretty close to the truth. A truth Melissa’s “why not?” response addressed rather aptly, now that he thought about it. The model for this world was a bad B-movie. He kind of kept forgetting that in the midst of all the excitement. And very often in those movies things sort of just happened. Odd, random things. For no good reason. Or for almost logical but totally insane reasons, as in any typical Troma film. So this little mystery was sort of like that. Or it wasn’t. She was right, though. It didn’t really matter much, so he decided to stop thinking about it.

  Which was a good thing, as they were nearly out of time.

  They came around a bend in the wildly curving, tree-shrouded road and Victor’s multistory mansion loomed into view. This was the first time Monroe had gotten a really good full-on look at the thing. It was massive. The kind of abode you usually only saw in movies about absurdly superrich people. It was very Gothic and ominous-looking.

  Monroe said, “Gulp.”

  Melissa looked at him. “Did you just say ‘gulp’ out loud?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thought so.”

  Melissa slowed as they neared the gate in the towering iron fence surrounding the property. The gate stood open and a number of vehicles were parked haphazardly in front of the mansion. These were all nondescript black vans with tinted windows. Some were parked on the lawn. One had slammed into a statue of some sort, knocking it over. Pieces of marble were scattered across the circular drive.

  Monroe heard sounds of shooting from inside the mansion as they stopped just outside the gate. He also heard screaming between rounds of gunfire. Whether it was human or vampire in origin, it was impossible to tell.

  Melissa and Monroe exchanged a troubled glance.

  Monroe said, “This is not good. They seriously arrived in force.”

  “They do seem to mean business.”

  Melissa stared at the mansion and thought things over a moment longer.

  Then she backed the Phantom up, executed a quick three-point turn, and headed back the way they had come.

  Monroe hoped his relief wasn’t too obvious. “Probably the only real option, I guess.”

  Melissa grunted. “Oh, we’re not running.”

  “We’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Oh…well…good. I guess.”

  If Melissa noticed his reluctance, she didn’t show it. “There’s a little access road we passed on the way in. It’ll take us to a secret rear entrance.”

  Monroe suppressed a groan.

  Of course it will. We are so fucked.

  Minutes later they were speeding down the very dark and narrow access road. Monroe didn’t see how Melissa could see well enough to keep them on course in the depths of such darkness. More advanced vampire skills, he guessed. Still, it was a harrowing journey. He would have prayed to God to keep him safe until they arrived at their destination, but he knew how much of a joke that was. He was a vampire. A monster. A killer.

  God, if such a being existed, didn’t care about him.

  Not anymore.

  A dim light ahead pierced the darkness. The promised rear entrance, probably. Monroe’s mind had barely formed this thought when the already much-abused Phantom crashed through a closed gate with a ringing screech of rending metal.

  Victor came striding back into the master bedroom only moments after the first faint sounds of gunfire erupted. His gait was purposeful but unhurried, the set of his features conveying grim determination but no panic. Kira was still cradling the corpse of the one-eyed blonde girl she had failed to turn into a vampire, despite careful coaching from Aubrey and Jenna.

  She had gotten carried away and had bitten out too large a chunk of her tender throat. Determined to make the best of a plan gone awry, Kira had endeavored to consume every remaining drop of blood from the girl’s body, a goal she had nearly achieved by the time the mysterious assault on the mansion began. />
  Victor took in the sight of her blood-drenched, nude body and gave a terse nod of approval. “Good. You’ll have your strength up. You’ll need it.”

  “What’s happening out there?”

  “An attack by an army of vampire hunters. We need to leave this place. Now.”

  Kira let the dead girl’s ravaged body slide from her arms to drop with a thump on the floor. “I need clothes.”

  “No time.” He snapped his fingers at Aubrey and Jenna as he crossed the room to stand before a painting hanging on the wall by the fireplace. “Girls, escort your mistress to the helipad at once. Protect her at all costs.”

  The servant vampires made sounds of assent and each seized Kira by an arm. They dragged her to her feet and steered her toward the bedroom door. Kira allowed them to lead her away, but en route to the door she turned her head to address Victor. “Where are we going?”

  Victor felt along an edge of the painting and triggered a hidden latch. The painting swung away from the wall on hinges, revealing a safe with a combination lock. Victor quickly spun through the combination, opened the safe, and began removing documents. He flipped through some of them as he addressed Kira. “Somewhere safe, my bride. I have several other uncompromised residences in various parts of the world. That’s all you need to know for now. The rest can be arranged once we are safely away from this place.”

  “But—”

  But there was no more time for interrogation. Aubrey and Jenna dragged her out into the corridor and steered her to the left. Kira glanced over the ornate, polished railing at a scene of carnage and chaos two stories below. A number of Victor’s black-clad security goons were tangling with an opposing force of men and women also clad in black. The invaders swarming through the massive foyer also wore black ski masks and were armed with scary-looking automatic weapons. Victor’s men fought bravely, but they were outnumbered, even with many of the vampires in residence fighting alongside them. The guns of the invaders chattered endlessly as body after body fell beneath the fusillade. Most shocking to Kira was how easily the bullets blew apart the bodies of vampires.