below, rapidly gaining, and two more scaling the wall to pounce on me. The hatch was still ten feet away.
'You should have taken my offer,' the vampire roared.
He jumped impossibly high and landed on the ladder directly below me. The metal shook under the impact. Hot water droplets flew off and struck me in the face. Three wights and a vampire in striking distance in the next few seconds. I just kept climbing because that was my only option. I was pretty much screwed.
Then the hatch opened, directly above my head. It was my savior.
It was Grant Jefferson.
'Grant! Help me!' I screamed, clawing my way toward him.
His eyes grew wide as he saw the undead creatures swarming upwards. He started to hold out his hand to me, and then he apparently decided that he did not have time before the creatures would be on him as well. I could see the fear register on his face as he did the math. They were too close. Grant stood in his polished black body armor, bristling with useful weaponry, and said two words: 'Sorry, Pitt.' He looked right at me as he slammed the hatch.
'Arrgghhhh!' I shouted unintelligibly. Darne laughed below. I stuck one of my legs through the ladder to lock myself into position as well as possible. I reached across my body and drew my pistol with my left hand, sighted on the closest wight spider-crawling upward, and shot it in the head four times before it slipped from the wall and fell thirty-five feet onto its back with a bone-jarring crunch. The other wall crawler leapt, and I just barely had time to align the front sight on the monster before impact, firing a silver slug through the monster's brain. The wight's momentum carried it forward where it struck one of my legs. It fell away screaming in rage. Darne easily avoided the falling undead, but the blind wight underneath was not so lucky. The two monsters collided and fell the rest of the way to the hard metal floor. This time they did not rise. My now-numb leg buckled, and I only barely held on.
Now it was just me and Darne. He flew up the ladder. I fired the remaining ten rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hit him repeatedly but with almost no effect. I dropped the pistol, and he swatted it out of the air. I watched hopelessly as it flew into multiple pieces. I grasped wildly for my knife, but it was too late. He was beside me on the ladder.
His clawed hand clamped around my throat like an iron vise, choking off my air. A bullet hole in his forehead closed and squeezed out a mushroomed. 45 slug like some disastrous pimple. I learned a few things right then. Vampires did not breathe, and I was in fact still afraid of dying. I was surprised that I was thinking about Julie. I just hoped that she made it.
'Tell me just one thing, you poor brave idiot,' the vampire ordered as he shook me. 'How did you know about Lord Machado? How?'
'I went to France once,' I gasped.
'And what does that have to do with anything?' Darne asked, fangs extending as he prepared to feed on me. I wondered if I had the strength to break free long enough to fall to my death. It beat the alternative.
'My family went there to see where one of my grandpas was buried. He died on Utah Beach.'
'How touching. Now, if you tell me how you learned about Lord Machado, I'll make your death painless.'
'I learned that the people in the countryside were pretty nice. But the people in Paris were a bunch of stuck- up, self-righteous pricks. I'm guessing you're from Paris.'
'Idiot.' Darne's jaw distended as his mouth opened like an anaconda about to eat a goat.
'Darne!' a voice shouted from below. It was Earl Harbinger. He strode into the engine room through the swirling orange smoke.
The vampire's mouth slowly closed. 'Hello, Earl. It has been a while.'
'Come down here and face me. You know you're not going to get out of here alive. MHI controls the whole freighter. Your goons are all staked. It's over.'
'I have your man as a hostage. Let me go, or I kill him,' the vampire hissed.
'You know the rules. You helped write them. Let him go and come down here and fight me. You know you've wanted to prove something for a long time. Let's go. Either way you're going to die. At least this way you get the satisfaction of seeing if I am as good as they say.'
'And what if I just kill this piece of merde?' He squeezed so hard that the vertebrae in my neck popped. I cringed in pain, and involuntary tears rolled from my eyes.
'Then I'll have my men at the hatch above you throw down buckets of holy water. I'll just stake you while you're laying on the ground and sizzling. Or even better, I'll tie you up and drag you into the sun. You've seen it. You know how much that has to hurt. I swear that if you kill that Hunter then I'll drag you out of here and nail you to the superstructure and watch you burn. I figure you can probably go a while before you finally quit kicking.' Harbinger unbuckled his armor straps and set his weapon harness on the deck. 'Just you and me, Darne. One last go- round.'
'How do I know you don't have ten Hunters waiting in the hall?'
'You don't. But you know my reputation.'
'I do. Fine, Earl. Let us see who the best Hunter really is.' The vampire released me and I dropped, barely managing to grab a rail. Darne let go and fell swiftly to the floor, landing as if it was nothing.
The two combatants squared off in the red light and steam. I watched in amazement as Harbinger began to circle. He was just a normal man, maybe two thirds of my weight, and in training he had never given any indication of having any sort of special fighting skills. On the other hand, I had just watched Darne perform several superhuman feats and smash my pistol into bits with his bare hands. This did not look good for Harbinger.
The hatch creaked open above me. Strong hands reached through and grasped the handles of my armor. The smell of Copenhagen told me that it was Sam Haven. He hung upside-down through the hatch and scanned the room. He saw Harbinger and Darne preparing to fight.
'Oh hell. We've got to get out of here!' Sam blurted. He tugged on me and grunted. 'Help me, you hare-lipped derelict! You're too damn heavy.'
'What about Harbinger?' I asked in a panic.
'Don't worry about Earl. He'll be fine. You don't want to be around him when he gets into one of his moods. Now move, damn it!' I struggled up the ladder with Sam pulling me. More hands grasped my arms and helped. Chuck Mead was there as well. The two burly men pulled me into the cargo bay. Sam threw the hatch down and spun the wheel to seal it behind us.
The cargo bay was much cooler. The steel of the floor was cold under my face. I lay there for a minute, panting, as the feeling painfully returned to my arm and leg. I could not understand what had just happened. Earl Harbinger had just given up his life for mine. I was sure that Darne was tearing him to pieces as we sat here uselessly. I gradually pulled myself to a sitting position, my back resting against a sheet-metal shipping container, my stomach clenched in agony, and my knee twinged as I moved it.
'We have to help him.'
'Trust me, Pitt. Earl's fine. Too late to do nothing now anyways. Let's get up to the weather deck.'
'What's a weather deck?' Mead asked with a blank stare. The big Ranger was splattered with blood, and there appeared to be claw marks on his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
'Fricking army. The top. The top part of the ship. The part that can see sky.'
'Oh, okay. Sunlight would be good.'
'I'm unarmed. Darne broke my guns,' I stated as Mead pulled me up.
'And that's a sorry state to be in. Here. Take this thing. The French guys don't need it no more.' Sam handed me a French FAMAS bullpup assault rifle. It was a slightly unwieldy and strange-looking weapon, but it would have to do. 'The crew, security team and Hunters have all been accounted for. We should be clear, but you never make no assumptions in this business. Let's get.'
As we made our way out of the cargo bay, I could not help but ask, 'Where is Grant?'
Sam scowled, his handlebar mustache scrunching in consternation; he finally spit a nasty clump of chew and shrugged. 'Reckon I don't know. Probably in the light.'
'He left me to die,' I said hotly.
'Yep. I figured as much. Some folks are brave when others are watching them, but it is harder to be brave when there ain't no witnesses. Grant's never flaked on us before. He probably figured you were dead anyway, no use getting killed for no reason. I reckon that Earl will want to talk with him about that.'
'Yeah. Me too.' I cracked my knuckles. I had murder in my heart and it must have been obvious to Sam. He
