Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

'Nobody ever heard the knock at the front door. No one except Ron. He was Dave's sub, a rookie straight out of the academy. He was still kind of sick from the slaying, not the vampire bit, the human part that comes before you get to the vampires. Anyway, he'd been visiting the upstairs bathroom periodically.' We watched him, a young, spiky- haired version of David Spade, with the physique of a marathon runner and the constitution (at least temporarily) of a tubercular alcoholic. He was coming down the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other on his stomach.

In the living room it was my deal, and I'd just begun to shuffle the cards.

Ron came down the steps slow, stepping in eerie time to the rhythm of my shuffling. When he reached the bottom, he heard a knock at the door. Nobody else did. They were all yelling at me.

'Get the lead out and deal the cards already!' Jessie roared, throwing her paper airplane at my head.

I grinned. 'Just getting the cards warmed up for you, Jess.'

A chorus of 'Aw, come on!' and 'Deal, dammit!' drowned out Ron, who was saying, 'Please tell me you didn't order more pizza,' as he opened the door.

A blue-eyed, long-legged blond stood on the threshold, carrying an insulated pizza box container. She smiled coyly at Ron. 'Hi. Wow, are you a S.W.A.T. guy? I love your uniform!'

Ron grinned. The poor fool couldn't help it. She resembled every centerfold he'd ever drooled over. 'Kinda,' he said. 'Um, how much do I owe you?'

'Sixteen-fifty,' she said, flashing a couple of dimples, this time accompanied by a tempting bit of cleavage. 'Do you mind if I come in?' she asked, looking over one shoulder with just the right hint of fear. 'It's kind of creepy out here in the dark.'

'Sure, come on in. My house is your house,' he said, a chivalric knight taking temporary ownership of federal property to save his distressed damsel. It turned out she was just damned. Ron died with both hands in his pockets, fishing for a twenty while a goofy, I've-bagged-a-Playmate smile played across his face Pizza Girl had lunged for his throat and torn out his larynx before he understood his mistake had killed us all.

The complaints from my comrades had finally reached a satisfying peak and I'd just dealt Matt his first card when we heard Ron's body hit the floor. Jessie, who had the best view of the entrance, jumped up and yelled, 'Vampire!' just as Pizza Girl cried, 'Enter and be welcome!' out the front door.

A stream of vamps poured into the house with the impact of a tidal wave. But we were nothing if not prepared, and all of us still wore the weapons we'd used to clear the nest earlier that day.

Brad and Olivia fought shoulder to shoulder, pumping bullets into the vamps. Pizza Girl, her chest a mix of her own blood and Ron's gore, waded through the barrage, lofted the love seat and threw it at them. They went down in a flurry of splinters and stuffing and the vamps went after them, swarming like locusts until all you could see were Brad's twitching fingers and all you could hear were Olivia's fading screams.

Dellan smoked two of the vamps who came after him, but with no time to restring his crossbow, he had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. His punches rocked the three monsters who came for him, his kicks knocked them back, and I'm sure I heard ribs crack before they overpowered him. One vamp, who looked like he should've been doling out the cash at First National's drive-up window, picked Dellan up and threw him head first into the fireplace where he lay, limp and broken as a discarded doll. He followed up with a poker through Dellan's heart.

Thea emptied her magazine into the swarm before retreating to the fireplace wall and having at them with the ash shovel. She held her own until Dellan lost his battle. The momentary distraction of seeing him fade to nothing was all her attackers needed. They jumped her like a gang of rapists, only it wasn't her body they wanted. They bled her dry while Matt, Jessie and I made a fighting retreat to the kitchen and the back door that entered into it. We delivered bolts, body blows and bullets in equal numbers. For a minute there was so much blood and smoke in the air you'd swear it was storming plasma.

'Get out, Jessie!' I yelled. She stood closest to the door. 'Get help!' She ran to the door and I shot the vamp who tried to intercept her, tore a hole through his brain that would take days to heal. She wrenched the door open and stepped outside. But they were waiting for her, a hungry little horde of newbies so freshly turned their bite marks still remained, livid and glowing to my new-seeing eyes.

Through a haze of grief and unshed tears, though my teeth were chattering like a badly tuned engine, I managed to say, 'I don't remember anything at all after Jessie's death.'

'I hate for you to have to see this,' Cassandra whispered, clutching her hands together so tightly her nails made bloody imprints in her skin, 'But it is necessary in order for you to understand the final outcome—to believe.'

Oh, I've believed I was God's biggest mistake for some time now, Cassandra, I thought as I watched Matt and former me trade blows with our adversaries. It seemed like they were everywhere, although I only counted four. They just moved so quickly it was like fighting an army.

'What,' said a voice from my holographic memory, one I now recognized, 'are they still alive?'

Aidyn Strait stepped into the room and we experienced a sudden ceasefire. He sneered at us, his fangs dripping with the blood of the other Helsingers. 'When you killed my humans, you set me back years in my research, did you know that?' He snatched a knife from the butcher block table that stood just inside the kitchen/ living room throughway. 'That makes me angry. And it's not nice to make Aidyn angry, is it children?'

The other vamps flinched at their own hidden memories and shook their heads.

One moment Aidyn was sidling towards us, the next he was a blur of motion. He dove at me, the knife he held a glittering extension of his arm.

'Jasmine!' I'd never heard such fear in Matt's voice; it squeezed at my heart. But I couldn't comfort him because I couldn't escape the blade. Unbalanced by the speed of the attack, realizing my fatal vulnerability, I felt this tremendous, oceanic regret that my life should end so soon, with so much left undone.

And then Matt was there, pushing me aside, standing where I'd stood, trying to deflect the blade, trying to defend me. I grabbed at him, attempted to reverse direction and push him out of the way. I was still innocent enough to believe the blade would pause, give me the time I needed to save him. But all my youth and all my will did nothing to slow the blade's descent. I watched it fall and wanted to be the one beneath it after all. But time ran out on me.

Both in that place and in Cassandra's living room, tears rained down my cheeks and I jerked like a marionette as Aidyn's blade pierced Matt's chest. He crumpled to the floor, pulling my whole world with him. An abyss of grief