Vampire$

interested in the carcasses — just the blood — he assumed they were Satan worshippers. A devout Baptist, he then doubled the price as a matter of principle. The technician and the Catholic priest exchanged tired looks between them. Then they paid up without a word and drove away with the blood.

The three groups met, an hour and a half later, in the empty driveway of the sheriff’s empty home, where Jack lost no time cutting the women loose.

“Get out of here, Annie,” Jack told her firmly. “Get out of this county. You still have your gun?”

Annabelle nodded nervously and clutched her purse more tightly.

“Okay,” said Crow. He looked over at the uniformed limo driver, looking out-of-place and worried.

“Fire that guy,” Jack ordered her. “Have him take you to a car-rental place… Or better, have him take you to the airport. Then take a taxi to the car-rental place. Make him think you’re leaving town.”

Annabelle frowned. “I don’t think he knows anything that’s going on. Or cares, for that matter.”

Jack smiled grimly. “I don’t either. But do it, anyway. Right?”

She nodded. “Right.”

“Okay. Move.”

She started to go, stopped. She put a hand to his cheek.

“Be careful, dear,” she said softly.

Jack stared a second. Annabelle had never done that before.

But then he shook it off and the smile be chose was wry and he replied, “First chance I get.”

And Annabelle smiled back and herded in the silent Davette with a look and then, without another word, the ladies and the limo drove away.

There was a moment — not a long one — when the men simply stood there and watched the car drive off.

“Okay, people,” said Jack quietly, “let’s saddle up.”

And he walked over to the Blazer and pulled out his own chain mail and started putting it on. The other inside warriors — Cat, Adam, and Felix — did the same. Carl and Deputy Thompson stood and watched them. No one spoke.

Jack did a quick check to see that the four were buttoned up right, then nodded to Deputy Thompson, who produced a key from a hiding place deep in his holster. Then he went over to what looked to the others like a garden storage shed beside the sheriffs garage.

Except that it took two dead bolts and a combination to open its four-inch-thick fire door. From inside, the deputy produced one case, twenty-count, CS (Military) Type tear-gas grenades and seven gas masks. Carl, Jack, and the deputy showed Cat and Felix how to adjust the masks and how to pull the pins on the grenades. When everybody seemed to have a mask strapped to fit, they got in the vehicles, with the patrol car in the lead, and headed back for downtown Clebume, Texas.

When they got to the Johnson County Jail, there were three police cars and six uniformed officers, complete with shotguns, flak jackets, and riot gear, waiting for them.

“Dammit!” hissed Jack Crow when he saw them. “How the hell did they know?”

“They didn’t,” offered the deputy from beside him. “I had to tell them.”

At first Crow couldn’t speak. When at last be tried, the deputy wouldn’t let him.

“Hold it, Mr. Crow!” Kirk snapped. And then, more calmly: “Before you say anything, let me talk. There’s nothing wrong with the Cleburne Police. They aren’t corrupt. They aren’t cowards. And they aren’t stupid. People being killed by monsters in their town square and they can’t do anything to stop it — and then the mayor hires somebody who can and then their chief tells them not to help out. Don’t you think they know there’s something strange going on?”

He paused a moment, took a breath. Crow sat silent. Waiting.

“Now,” the deputy continued, “I know these six men well. And they know me and…”

“Are you saying they’re on our side?” piped Cat from the back seat.

“Nossir!” hissed the deputy, eyeing Jack Crow. “They don’t know you. As far as they could tell, you might be the cause of all this!”

“Then whose side,” asked Jack quietly, “are they on?”

The deputy smiled. “Mine.”

Jack grinned. “Good enough. They’ll watch our backs while we go inside?”

“They will.”

“Do they know what we’re about to try?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know what has to be done if we can’t cut it?”

“They know.”

“Okay, deputy. Let’s do it.”

The Team piled warily out of the three vehicles at Jack’s signal and stood on the sidewalk in front of the jail assembling their equipment. The police said nothing to anyone except the deputy and that was so low no one else heard what was said.

But they didn’t try to arrest anyone. Or even slow them down. And they did appear to be on guard.

“Looks like we got a break,” whispered Cat to Crow.

Crow nodded. “Looks like,” he whispered back. “Quite a kid, that deputy.

“You’re not thinking about recruiting him, are you bwana?” Cat asked wickedly.

Jack’s face was blank. “Don’t need to. He’ll volunteer. If… you know.”

“Yeah,” growled Cat sourly. “I know. If we live long enough to be volunteered to.”

“Right. Now, Kirk and I will go inside and get the rest of the stuff we need.”

“You want us to start pouring the blood?”

“Wait till we get back. Deputy?”

The deputy stepped away from the two policemen he had spoken to.

“Ready?” asked Jack.

“Ready,” said the deputy. And with a nod to the policemen, went inside and arrested everyone in sight.

There were only four. Two at the booking counter, one in the back sitting behind a desk staring dully at a typewriter, and the last drinking thirstily from the water fountain.

All were pale, dead eyed, weak…

And owned.

It was there in their faces, in their posture, in the resigned, almost relieved, manner in which they stood there and allowed themselves to be handcuffed. The only thing that could be thought of as some form of resistance came from one of the two standing at the booking desk, a pale fair-haired man of about thirty named Dan, who made a frantic lunge for a jury-rigged red button stuck to the wall with masking tape.

Jack snatched the other man’s wrist away from the alarm in midair and felt the bones in Dan’s arm bend under the pressure of his grip. Dan yelped and groaned so sharply, Jack instinctively let loose of him and saw a deep purple bruise in the shape of his gloved fingers already forming on the wrist.

“Good Lord!” whispered Kirk.

Jack looked at him over Dan, who had crumpled to the floor holding his arm. “You see it, too?”

“Hell, yeah, I see it!” cried Kirk. “What the hell’s the matter with him?”

“Offhand, I’d say it was loss of blood.”

It was about then that Dan began to sob.

Soon the other two were also crying, deep tortured heaves that shook their shoulders painfully.

It hurt to watch it. Jack had been planning to get whoever was inside outdoors and into the squad car and out of the way as soon as possible, but this was just too good a chance to let by.

The fact was that Jack had never, in all his battles, actually met someone he knew to be under the influence of vampires. He knew there were always two or three suicides in the places where the Team had done its job. And he figured those were the ones who couldn’t bear to live with the shame of what they’d been made to do.

But he’d never actually seen it. He looked down at the four, now huddled together and weeping. He could