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"Why don&039;t I get a shotgun?" Larry asked

I just looked at him He looked serious I shook my head "When you can handle the nine, we&039;ll talk about shotguns"

"Great"

Oh, for the enthusiaser than I was Sometioing to shoot us in the back by accident, is he?" Deputy Coltrain asked

I smiled, not sweetly "He promised not to"

Coltrain looked at

Sheriff St John joined us at the edge of the woods He had a shotgun, too I had to trust that he kne to use it Wallace had the shotgun fro rifle like so tool for tonight&039;s job, and I had said so Granger had just looked at un

I looked around at theive the word

"Everybody got their holy water?" I asked

Larry patted his coverall pocket Everyone else nodded, or mumbled yes

"Re One: Never, ever look theive up your cross Three: Aim for the head and heart Even with silver a blohere else" I felt like a kindergarten teacher sending her kiddies off to a hostile playground "Don&039;t panic if you get bitten The bite can be cleansed As long as they don&039;t ht"

I looked at them, all silent, all taller than me, even Larry by an inch or two They could all arm wrestle me and win So why did I want to order them all into the house where&039;d they&039;d be safe? Heck, we could all go inside Have a nice cup of hot cocoa Tell the Quinlans their little girl would be fine I ht?

I took a deep breath and let it out slow "Let&039;s do it, boys We&039;re wasting starlight" Either nobody got ht it was funny Hard to tell which

I had to let St John lead the way into the black trees I didn&039;t know the area He did But I didn&039;t like hi point I didn&039;t like it at all I wanted to bring hih school sweetheart Five years et him killed

The trees closed around us St John threaded his way through therowth this tioing through thick woods, especially in the dark You can&039;t really see even with a flashlight You have to sort of give yourself over to the trees the way you give yourself to water when you swim You don&039;t really concentrate on the water, or even on your own body You concentrate on the rhythh the cool liquid For the forest you find a rhythh the natural openings Finding the place where the forest itself will let you through If you fight it, it will fight you back And, just like water, it can kill you Anyone who doesn&039;t believe that the forest is a deadly place has never been lost in one

St John kne to move, and so did I I was pretty pleased at that, actually I&039;d been a city girl for a long time Larry stuone down

"Sorry," he said, pushing hi up there, va up the rear I had to go second to back up St John, and I wouldn&039;t let Larry take rear Coltrain had wanted it Said he and the sheriff would guard our ass Fine with me

"Yell a little louder," Wallace said "I don&039;t think the vampire heard you"

"I don&039;t need no statie telling me how to do my job"

"It knoe&039;re here," I said

That stopped theer, as just ahead of Wallace, looked at me, too I had everyone&039;s attention

"Even if the va is incredibly acute It knoe&039;re here It knoe&039;re co It doesn&039;t matter if we&039;re quiet or have a brass band It&039;s all the same We won&039;t surprise it in the dark" It would probably surprise us, but I didn&039;t add that part aloud We were all thinking it anyway

"We are wasting time here, Deputy," St John said

Coltrain didn&039;t apologize or even look sorry Wallace did "I&039;ain"

St John nodded and turned without another word and led us farther into the woods

Coltrain o Whatever he said, I didn&039;t think Wallace would rise to bait again At least I hoped not I didn&039;t care if he was scared; we had enough proble ourselves

The trees rustled and swayed around us Last year&039;s dead leaves crunched underfoot Soust, strea my hair back from my face Up ahead the quality of darkness was different We were approaching the clearing

St John stopped just short of the tree line He glanced back at me "How do you want to do this?"

I could taste the rain on the wind co closer If possible, I wanted us out of here before it came Visibility sucked as it was

"We kill it, and we get the hell back to the house It&039;s not a hard plan"

He nodded, as if I&039;d said soure stepped in front of us One , the next there he was Darkness and shadows, un and threw hi arch

I shot the vae He collapsed to his knees I caught a glimpse of the whites of his eyes, like he couldn&039;t believe it I had to puun to jack another shell in place

Granger&039;s rifle exploded behind me like a cannon Someone screamed I shot the vampire between the eyes His head splattered into the leaves I turned with the shotgun to round

Larry was on the ground with a va brown hair before his cross flared to life in a brilliant flash of blue-white fire She flung herself backwards with a screa into the dark Gone

A vaer in her slender arun They were pressed too close together At this range I&039;d kill theun into Larry&039;s surprised lap He was still lying on the ground, blinking I drew the Browning and fired into the vao of Granger The vampire looked at me, the man still clasped to her chest She hissed atmouth It blew the back of her head out

The vao of Granger and fell to the leaves in convulsions Granger just lay there In the dark I couldn&039;t see his face or neck Dead or alive, I&039;d done all I could

Larry was on his feet, shotgun aard in his hands

There was a screaround with a slender-bodied vas sunk in his arain

I had a gli, frozen, just beyond There wasfor the valeaht at it, but I lost a second so I knew the blade tip exploded fro at shadows, and the vaone It scuttled through the trees like nothing huhtmare seen froun to his shoulder, airabbed it fro smashed into my back and rode me into the leaves A hand pressedleaves A second hand ripped the back of my coverall so violently it wrenched one shoulder There was an explosion just behind

Larry was standing over un out Whatever he&039;d shot was gone out in the dark

My left shoulder was hurt, but not as badly as it led to one

Wallace was sitting up, cradling his ar A sound behind us I turned, Browning pointed Larry was turning too, but too slow I sighted down the barrel, and it was St John

"Don&039;t shoot It&039;s un two-handed pointed at the ground "Sweet Jesus," he said

Amen "What happened to you?"

"The fall knocked me out I followed the sound of shots," St John said

A gust of wind slapped against us It sly of rain I aler&039;s pulse, Larry," I said

"What?" Larry looked shell-shocked

"See if he&039;s alive" It was a messy job, and I&039;d have done it myself, but I trusted me more than Larry to keep the vaht, but I still trusted me more

St John walked past us He touched Wallace, who nodded "My arm&039;s broke, but I&039;ll live" St John went to Coltrain&039;s still forun to his left hand, not the best thing to do, but I understood Hard to check for a pulse in the dark on a throat ith blood; better to use your doot a pulse" He looked up, his broad smile a dim whiteness in the dark

"Coltrain&039;s dead," St John said "God help listened with blood, black in the diht "He&039;s nearly decapitated What did this?"

"Sword," I said I&039;d seen it Watched it happen But all I could reer than most A shadoith a sas all I&039;d seen, and I&039;d been looking right at it

So flowed acrossnight like water "There&039;s so old out here," I said

"What are you talking about?" St John said

"An ancient vampire It&039;s here I can feel it" I searched the darkness, but nothingto see Nothing to fight But it was here and it was close Sword in hand, er sat up so suddenly that Larry fell back into the leaves with a squeak The big un, and I knehat the va at his head and waited I had to be sure

Granger didn&039;t hunt for his dropped rifle He drew his sidearm and pointed it very slowly, as if he didn&039;t want to do it He pointed it at Larry froer, what the fuck are you doing?"

I fired

Granger jerked; the gun wavered, then his hand caain His hand fell slowly to the ground, gun still in it He fell straight back into the leaves

"Granger!" Wallace was screaot there first and kicked the gun out of his hand If he&039;d twitched, I&039;d have shot hiain He didn&039;t twitch He just lay there, dead

Wallace tried to cradle him one-handed "Why&039;d you shoot hi to kill Larry You saw it"

"Why?"

"The vamp that bit him His master is out here And he&039;s a powerful son of a bitch He used hier&039;s bloody head in his lap, his own ravaged ar

Shit

A sound rode the rising wind A sharp, furious barking A woh and clear, cut across the sound

"Oh, God," I whispered

"Beth" St John was on his feet running before I could say anything

I grabbed Wallace&039;s shoulder, pulling on his jacket He looked up

"What&039;s happening?"

"They&039;re in the house," I said "Can you walk?"

He nodded I helped him to his feet

Another scream came It wasn&039;t the same scream A man this time, or a boy

"Stay with him, Larry Get to the house as soon as you can"

"What if they&039;re trying to split us up?" Larry asked

"Then it&039;s going to work," I said "Shoot anything that moves" I touched his arm, as if that would make him more real, keep hio for the house Larry had signed up to be a monster slayer The Quinlans and Beth St John hadn&039;t

I holstered the Browning, kept a two-handed grip on the shotgun, and threw oing Rushing through openings in the trees that I wasn&039;t sure were there, but they were I juhttears to my eye The forest that had seemed passable before was now a rabbed and tripped I was running blind It was not a good way to stay alive with vampires in the dark I spilled out onto the Quinlans&039; lawn on ripped

The front door was open Light spilled in a warot to ht

The poodle lay broken by the door, crumpled like someone had tried to force it into a ball

The doors to the living room were open A second shot sounded I went in to the left of the door, wall at un ready

Mr and Mrs Quinlan were huddled in the far corner with their crosses held out before thenesiu in front of them didn&039;t look much like a vampire It looked like a skeleton with muscle and flesh stretched over a bone frame It was stretched i and wide as a scimitar Coltrain&039;s killer?

St John was firing into the brown-haired va brown hair parted in thea face that was blood-slimpse of Beth St John on the floor behind her She wasn&039;tinto the va Blood blossoun clicked, eered, then fell to her knees She fell forward on all fours, and you could see that her back was soon the floor while St John reloaded

I got toto keep an eye on the door just in case this wasn&039;t all I walked towards the Quinlans and the thing that stood in front of theun Didn&039;t want to catch the turned on limpse of a face that was neither hus and blind, glowing eyes It shrank, and skin flowed over the bare flesh, covered the nearly naked bone I&039;d never seen anything like it When I ai into what could have passed for a hu white hair fra was the word for that blur of motion It ran like soether, but I had no better word for it Soone before I could pull the trigger

I was left staring at the open door where the barrel had followed its movement Could I have fired? Had I hesitated? I didn&039;t think so, but I wasn&039;t sure It was like in the woods when Coltrain died, like I&039;d missed a few seconds The va I&039;d seen clearly in the woods had been the sword

St John shot into the fallen vaun went click, click, click

I walked over to him The vas There was no face left "It&039;s dead, St John You killed it"

He just stared at it, down the barrel of his e He collapsed to his knees suddenly, as if he just couldn&039;t stand any longer He crawled over to his wife, gun left behind hi, rocking her She was soaked with blood Her throat was soa high, keening sound deep in his throat

The Quinlans&039;s crosses had stopped glowing They stood still clinging to each other, blinking as if blinded by the light

"Jeff--he took Jeff," Mrs Quinlan said

I looked at her Her eyes were too wide "He took Jeff"

"Who took Jeff?" I asked

"The big one," Mr Quinlan said "That thing, that thing told Jeff to take his cross off, and Jeff did it" He looked at me with startled eyes "Why did he do that? Why did he take it off?"

"The vaht him with his eyes," I said "He couldn&039;t help hier, he wouldn&039;t have given in," Quinlan said

"It wasn&039;t your son&039;s fault"

Quinlan shook his head "He wasn&039;t strong enough"

I turned away fro at St John He had folded as much of his wife&039;s body into his lap and arms as he could He rocked her, eyes distant He wasn&039;t seeing this rooone somewhere deep inside Someplace better I hoped

I went for the door I didn&039;t have to see this Watching St John rock his wife&039;s body was not part of my job description Honest

I sat down on the stairs where I could see the door, the hallway, and the stairs as far as the landing St John started singing in a strange, broken voice It tookIt was "You Are So Beautiful" I got up and went for the outer door Larry and Wallace were just li up onto the porch

I just shookI was al I stood there taking deep breaths, letting the, concentrated on the sound of frogs and wind I concentrated on anything but the sound that was building init was dangerous, and not sure I cared I stood there until I was sure I wasn&039;t going to start screa Then I turned and went back to the house

It was the bravest thing I&039;d done all night