at Eph, Eph blocking the blows with his forearm. The boy lost the flashlight but kept fighting, his fists striking Eph’s chest, hands reaching inside Eph’s coat. Finally Eph dropped his sword in order to grip the boy’s wrists and hold him off.
Eph saw, crumpled in the boy’s left fist, a piece of paper. Zack saw that Eph had noticed and fought his father’s attempts to pry open his fingers.
Eph pulled out the crumpled paper map. Zack had tried to take it from him. He stared into his son’s eyes and saw the presence. He saw the Master seeing through Zack.
“No,” said Eph. “No—please. No!”
Eph pushed the boy away. He was sickened. He looked at the map, then slipped it back into his pocket. Zack stood, backpedaling. Eph saw that the boy was about to take a run at the nuke. At the detonator.
The Born was there, Mr. Quinlan intercepting the boy and swallowing him up in a bear hug, spinning him away. The Born had a diagonal scrape across his face, from his left eye to his right cheek. Eph got to his feet, the ripping pain in his chest nothing compared to the loss of Zack.
Eph picked up his sword and went to Zack, still held by the Born. Zack was grimacing and nodding his head rhythmically. Eph held the silver blade near his son, watching for a response.
The silver did not repel him. The Master was in his mind but not his body.
“This isn’t you,” said Eph, speaking to Zack and also convincing himself. “You’re going to be okay. I have to get you out of here.”
Eph grabbed Zack from him. “Let’s go to the boats.”
The Born lifted his leather pack to his shoulder, then gripped the straps of the bomb, pulling it off the counter. Eph grabbed the pack at his feet and pushed Zack toward the door.
Dr. Everett Barnes hid behind the trash shed located twenty feet from the restaurant, on the edge of the dirt parking lot. He sucked air through his broken teeth and felt the pleasurable sting of pain that produced.
If there truly was a nuclear bomb in play—which, judging by Ephraim’s apparent obsession with vengeance, there was—then Barnes needed to get as far away from this place as possible, but not before he shot that bitch. He had a gun. A nine-millimeter, with a full clip. He was supposed to use it against Ephraim, but the way he saw it, Nora would be a bonus. The cherry on top.
He tried to catch his breath in order to slow his heart rate. Placing his fingers to his chest, he felt a strange arrhythmia. He barely knew where he was, obeying blindly the GPS that connected him to the Master and that read the positioning of Zack with a unit hidden in the teenager’s shoe. In spite of the Master’s assurances, Barnes was nervous; with these vampires wilding all around the property, there was no guarantee they would be able to know a friend from an enemy. Just in case, Barnes was determined to get to some sort of vehicle if he had any chance to escape before this camp went up in a mushroom cloud.
He spotted Nora about a hundred feet away. He aimed at her as best he could and opened fire. Five rounds cracked out of the gun in rapid succession, and at least one of them connected with Nora, who fell down behind a line of trees… leaving a faint mist of blood floating in the air.
“I got you—you fucking cunt!” said Barnes triumphantly.
He pushed off from the gate and ran across the open lot toward the outlying trees. If he could follow the dirt road back out to the main street, he could find a car or some other means of transportation.
He reached the first line of trees, stopping there, shuddering as he discovered a puddle of blood on the ground… but no Nora.
“Oh, shit!” he said, and instinctively turned and rushed into the woods, tucking the gun in his pants. It burned him. “
“Looking for me?”
Barnes turned until he saw Nora Martinez just three trees away. Her forehead bore a gash, a bleeding, open wound the size of a finger. But she was unharmed otherwise.
He tried to run, but she grabbed the back of his jacket collar, pulling him back.
“We never had that last date you wanted,” she said, hauling him through the trees to the dirt drive.
“Please, Nora—”
She pulled him into the clear and looked him over. Barnes’s heart was racing, his breath short.
She said, “You don’t run this particular camp, do you?”
He pulled the gun out but it tangled on his Sansabelt pants. Nora quickly took it away and cocked it in a single expert move. She pressed it against his face.
He held up his hands. “Please.”
“Ah. Here they come.”
Out of the trees came the vampires, ready to converge, hesitant only because of the silver sword in Nora’s hand. They circled the two humans, looking for an opening.
“I am Dr. Everett Barnes,” Barnes announced.
“Don’t think they care for titles right now,” she said, holding them at bay. She frisked Barnes and found the GPS receiver. She stomped on it. “And I would say you’ve just about outlived your usefulness right now.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to release a bunch of these bloodsuckers, of course,” she said. “The question is, what are you going to do?”
“I… I have no weapon anymore.”
“That’s too bad. Because, like you, they don’t care much for a fair fight.”
“You… you wouldn’t,” he said.
“I am,” she said. “I’ve got bigger problems than you.”
“Give me a weapon… please… and I will do whatever you want. Whatever you need, I will give you…”
“You want a weapon?” asked Nora.
Barnes whimpered something like “Yes.”
“Then,” Nora said, “have one…”
Out of her pocket, she produced the butter-knife shank she had painfully crafted and buried it firmly in Barnes’s shoulder, jamming it between the humerus and the collarbone.
Barnes squealed and, more important, bled.
With a battle cry, she raced out at the largest vampire, cutting him down, then spinning, drawing more to her.
The rest paused just a moment to confirm that the other human held no silver and that the scent of blood came from him. Then they ran at him like pound dogs thrown a slab of meat.
Eph dragged Zack with him, following the Born to the shoreline where the dock began. He watched Mr. Quinlan hesitate a moment, the keg-shaped bomb in his arms, before crossing from the sand onto the wood planking of the long dock.
Nora came running to meet them. Fet was alarmed at her wound, rushing to her. “Who did this to you?” he roared.
“Barnes,” she said. “But don’t worry. We won’t be seeing him again.” She then looked at Mr. Quinlan. “You have to go! You know you can’t wait for daylight.”
“We’re going now,” said Eph, Zack pulling at his arm.
“I’m ready,” said Fet, starting toward the dock.
Eph raised his sword, holding the point near Fet’s throat. Fet looked at him, anger rising.
“Just me,” Eph said.
“What the… ?” Fet used his own sword to bat Eph’s away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Eph shook his head. “You stay with Nora.”
Nora looked from Fet to Eph.
“No,” said Fet. “You need me to do this.”
“She needs you,” said Eph, the words stinging as he spoke them. “I have Mr. Quinlan.” He looked back at the
