The two in front were Trennier's shields… he cared nothing for them or their undead existence… his leech was intent on only one thing: its own survival. And for the leech to survive its host must survive, too. But Ben Trask had other ideas.
'lan, their legs!' he was shouting. 'You men, aim at their legs — smash their bones — cut the bastards down!' He kept firing, his machine-pistol a stammering, jerking mad thing in his hands; Goodly's too, as he followed his leader's example. Likewise from the flanks: a stream of gunfire that turned the night to an uproar as the weapons of the squad spat silver death.
Yet still the three came on. They seemed to float, drifting forwards in that dreadful, dreamlike, kaleidoscopic or strobing stop-motion manner of the vampire. It was hypnotic; it appeared to be slow-motion, but in fact was lightning fasti And now they were only thirty to forty feet away. At which Trask gave a nod to one of his men on the right flank. And:
'Down!' he shouted, as the man armed and lobbed a grenade. Jake was young and fast, and his military training came in handy; Liz had already thrown herself flat when he took Miller off his feet, covering him with his own body. Then the brilliant flash, and a bang that echoed back from the valley walls.
The entire squad was on the deck; cordite stench came drifting, and with it the mewling of something utterly alien. Take looked up, saw Trask getting to his feet and offering his hand to Goodly. But in front of the wrecked, smouldering shack: the scene was unbelievable.
One crumpled figure, a hump of broken flesh, shuddered and steamed in the flickering firelight. Another was sitting there, just a trunk with no arms. Smoke curled from his hair; his yellow eyes were dim, rolling vacantly in their orbits. But Trennier was still on his feet. And Jake thought:
• This is the 'old man/ Bruce. A pitiful wreck of a man was what we saw, but this was the reality!
With his clothing in rags, blood-spattered, his awful face sliced open to the bone, still Trennier stumbled forward. Crying out his agony he came on, hands like claws reaching, blood spurting from his gums as his jaws cracked open, and open, and open! His eyes were scarlet… his great ears curved and scalloped like the wings of a bat… and those teeth, scything up through his riven gums!
The man with the flamethrower was on the ground. His weapon lay where he'd let it fall. Trask grabbed it up. And still Trennier came on, weaving towards Liz, reaching for her where she'd managed to get to her knees. 'You,' the thing rumbled, spitting blood. He seemed dazed; his flickering forked tongue licked tattered lips; finally his eyes focussed and he smiled a monstrous smile. 'You, woman… thought-caster? You thought to fool me — you even taunted me. Very well, and so you'll die with me!'
Jake was up on his feet now, and Miller was on his fat backside, scrabbling away from the horror for all he was worth. But Trennier was concentrating on Liz! He was almost upon her, his oh-so-long hands dripping blood as they reached for her!
Jake caught her round the waist and ran with her, made only two or three paces before tripping and falling. But they didn't hit the ground. No, for it was as if they fell in slow motion, and in Jake's mind a voice saying: Now! The numbers — the formula! Read it! Use it! Rut his own voice, or some other's?
Numbers rolled on the screen of Jake's mind… an endless mathematical progression displaying itself on his brain's computer. Numbers, yes, and he knew them — or someone did! Still holding on to Liz, still falling, Jake (or the unseen, unknown someone) stopped the numbers at a certain combination, an impossible formula that at once formed into a door.
They tumbled through it, into a place of negative gravity, a place of nothing at all, and in another moment — or perhaps no time at all — through a second door, and only then hit the ground. And rolling in the dust full fifty feet away from where they had been, so Jake heard Peter Miller babbling his terror, Trask's cry of triumph or vengeance or both, and the unmistakable roar of the flamethrower.
Even at that distance, still Jake and Liz felt something of the heat and drew back from it, and a moment later spied Miller where he came crying like a child, dragging his fat body along the scorched earth. Then they looked back.
Trennier danced there: the hideous, agonized dance of the true death. Vampire that he was, he beat his arms and screamed his wrath. Or was the awful sound something else? Like the hissing and popping of air-or gas- filled body-cavities when live lobsters are dropped in the pot? Maybe it was the nerve-rending fire-screech of the flamethrower, or perhaps a mixture of both? Jake wasn't sure, couldn't rightly say. He didn't see how Trennier could scream — not in the airless inferno that surrounded his melting body.
His stumbling dance went on for many a long second, there in the heart of that blue-white blast of superheated chemicals, until finally he succumbed. But the Thing inside him fought on — or at any rate caused Trennier to fight on — for a while longer yet. And that was the proof, the undeniable proof, of just how long he had been a vampire.
For as his body began to melt and his legs gave way, letting him collapse onto his backside, so at last his metamorphic flesh answered the call of his vampire nature. It was one last, desperate attempt by Trennier's leech to escape the fire — by using his altered flesh and liquids to damp down the flames.
His scraps of clothing had drifted free of his blackened body to waft aloft on the vile updraught. Now his fingers elongated into writhing worms, and his stomach bulged and burst into a nest of lashing purple tentacles. And all of these appendages were like penises that pissed into the fire, but uselessly. For this was a fire they couldn't put out. Only Ben Trask could do that, and he wouldn't until there was nothing left to burn. Or nothing left that could be considered injurious, anyway. Or at least until his weapon ran out of fuel.
But now the members of the other half-team were back from the ruins of the lesser shack. One of them had a flamethrower; turning his liquid fire on the vampire and his fallen thralls, he finished what Trask had started…
Eventually it was over, and Trask wanted to know:
'Were there no weapons? Why didn't they have weapons?' Now that it was done he seemed half-mazed, drained, as if there had been fires in him also, and they, too, were now extinguished. 'Weapons?' The second team's leader answered him. 'There's a small armoury in the mine shaft behind the lesser shack! Maybe they didn't think they'd need guns, against just two humans. Anyway, we've set charges well back inside the mine shaft. Thermite, too. When that blows, the whole place will go with it. If there's anything still in there, it won't be getting out.'
'Good!' Trask gave himself a shake and took a deep breath. And to the leader of the first team: 'Let's get to work on this end, too. I want the main shaft rigged good and deep. Okay, gentlemen, let's move it. The night's not over yet…' But it soon would be. By then, too, Trask would be his old self again, hard and businesslike. At least on the surface…
Within the hour the charges were triggered. The ground trembled underfoot, and the deep rumble of man- made thunder sounded from the mouths of the mine shafts. And even though the team's members were standing safely back from the face of the knoll, still they felt the flurry of hot air that rushed out of those night-dark pits, and smelled stenches other than those of chemicals.
Then there were clouds of dust, erupting as from blowholes, as the shafts gave way to countless tons of solid rock and lesser debris that came avalanching from on high. But even then it wasn't quite over, for now the effect of the thermite was seen: white gases escaping in high-pressure jets, and smoking liquid that filled even the smallest crevices, running over the rocks to seal them.
Finally someone said, 'In there, right now, it will be much like a blast furnace — the entire mine, cooking itself. I would sooner take my chances in a cellar in World War Two Dresden than in there!'
To which no one gave argument, or even made reply…
The back-up vehicles started to arrive and secondary clean-up could now commence. An old man, apparently plagued by rheumatism, hobbled here and there, examining the ashes of fires that were already cooling. Like Trask and Goodly, he wasn't especially protected; he wasn't wearing a gas mask, seemed to breathe freely (which indicated the absence of nose-plugs), and didn't appear too concerned with contamination. His only weapons were a wicked-looking machete, hanging in its sheath under his left arm, and an antiquated hand-fashioned crossbow. While this final phase of the operation got under way, Jake and Liz waited for Trask's instructions. By no means fully recovered from the night's events — lost in private and personal thoughts — they leaned against the side of the Land Rover where Jake had driven it back up onto the elevated shelf to clear the way for the articulated ops vehicle. And they were mainly silent.
But finally Jake shook off his mood of introspection — a worrying, morbid train of thought where he
