“Like hell I will,” I muttered, certain hecould hear me. Despite their great speed, the vampires fought inalmost total silence—it was an eerie sight, watching them strike ateach other, grapple in a complete blur, and then break apart, allwithout making a sound.
I headed for the office door but at the verylast moment, I veered off toward the bathroom. Once inside, I knewI didn’t have much time. At the speed this fight was progressing,it would be over before I could load my Glock—luckily for me, itwas already loaded.
I grabbed the gun and eased the door open,looking for a good shot. Unfortunately, the fight happened to be inone of the blur stages and all I could see was a fast-motion tangleof vampire limbs and flashing fangs.
When they broke apart, I could see thatCorbin was definitely getting the worst of it. My heart gave apainful thump when I saw his wounds—obviously slashes fromRoderick’s razor-sharp fangs. Vampires heal fast but even so he wasbleeding from over a dozen places and some of the wounds lookedreally deep—deep enough that a human would have been incapacitated.But Corbin just kept on fighting, a silent grimace of determinationon his face. Clearly he was going to see this through to theend.
“Will I enjoy her?” Roderick taunted as theycircled again. “Does she taste as good as she smells, that littlehuman consort of yours?”
“You will never get a chance to find out,”Corbin ground out.
“Oh, I think I will.” Roderick laughed. “Atfirst I simply planned to fuck her to death but now…now I thinkI’ll turn her. After she is born to darkness, she will be so muchmore durable. Her torment will go on and on…forever.”
The thought of becoming a vampire made mefeel physically ill but I forced my feelings down and aimed my gun.I finally got a good shot at Roderick but just as I was about tosqueeze the trigger, Corbin gave a low roar and launched himself atthe other vampire.
Shit! They blurred together again andI lost the shot. This time when they came out of it, Corbin’s leftarm was hanging limply by his side and Roderick was laughing. Therewas blood on his fangs.
Okay, this was it—I couldn’t wait for theperfect shot again, I just had to do the best I could. Corbin hadhis back to me though, blocking my view. Damn it, if I waited forhim to move, he might be dead the next time I got a chance atthis!
I wanted to stay in the safety of thebathroom and shoot from there but the way they were constantlymoving meant I needed to get closer. I pushed open the door andcame out, gun first. Unfortunately, the motion caught Roderick’seyes. I saw his eyes widen, then narrow and then he was coming forme.
As fast as vamps move, I shouldn’t have beenable to get off a single shot. But for some reason—maybe because hewas wounded or maybe because he wanted to play with me—Roderick wasjust slow enough for me to squeeze the trigger.
At the same time I shouted, “Corbin,down!”
The gun roared. Corbin dropped like a stonejust in time for the bullet to whiz by and bury itself inRoderick’s left shoulder.
Now, a bullet to the shoulder isn’t normallya killing shot. But as I’ve said before, my bullets arespecial—hollow points filled with liquid silver nitrate that actslike acid once it touches vamp flesh.
So what should have happened wasthis: the bullet should have ploughed into Roderick, exploding andexpanding, vaporizing his shoulder and a good part of his chest.Then the silver would spray everywhere, eating into his flesh likea fast acting acid, gouging holes in his face and arms andhands—everywhere it sprayed on impact. At this point, Roderickshould have fallen to his knees, screaming and clawing at theburning silver that continued to eat its way into him like a ratgnawing cheese. He should have continued in agony until the silverreached his heart or brain or I had mercy on him and shot himagain—this time in the head.
That is not what happened.
Oh, the bullet did plough into himand it made a very large hole—one big enough to see through,actually. I knew because I could see the tasteful Klimt paintingCorbin had hanging on the wall behind his desk through it.
But then, instead of expanding, the holebegan to shrink. And instead of eating into his skin, the silvernitrate seemed to dissipate. It was as though he was somehowrepelling it. Or maybe his flesh was actually taking itin—ingesting it and neutralizing it, somehow.
For whatever the reason, shooting Roderickdid nothing—well, nothing but enrage him.
“You little cunt,” he snarled. “Thathurt!”
His face grew white and frightening and hiseyes, already blood red, blazed like flames. Looking into them, Iwas sure I could see my death—the only bright side was that I hadprobably pissed him off enough to kill me immediately instead oftoying with me first. Still, I wasn’t going to stand there and waitfor death to come to me—I was going to fight it.
I fired again and again, squeezing thetrigger reflexively, but Roderick was too fast. He dodged aroundthe room as I shot, always one step ahead of my bullets. One ofthem went wild and I saw the priceless Ming vase, which Roderickhad put carefully on a chair earlier, shatter as a result.Oops. Well, that was probably the first and last time Iwould do over a million dollars' worth of damage with one shot. Toobad I was too busy trying to stay alive to enjoy it.
I kept squeezing the trigger until suddenlythe gun clicked instead of roaring. I stared at it, uncomprehendingat first. Finally it hit me, empty—it was empty. I had nothing todefend myself with now.
Roderick realized it too. Suddenly he wasright in front of me, leering like a death’s head, his face a whitehorror mask of rage and greed.
“Well, my dear, it seems you’re all out ofammunition.” His voice was distorted to a weird, shrieking howl andthe breath blowing in my face smelled like the snake cage at thezoo. Ugh.
“Looks like it.” I looked at my gun. Well,even without bullets,
