"You'll be the first to know." She laughed, showing her sharp teeth.
"Bitch!" the Brit said and reached for the handle of his machete.
Olivia's guards closed around her, reaching for their own. And then a thunderous boom rattled the windows and shook the floor beneath Lacey.
As the sound of the blast faded, the Brit and the three other undead who'd arrived with him cried out and clutched their chests. One by one they dropped to their knees.
Olivia's smile had vanished, replaced by a look of horror. Her voice rose in pitch, somewhere between a shout and a wail, as she rattled off a barrage of French too rapid for Lacey to follow. Lacey recognized the name "Gregor" but that was it.
Her guards looked as terrified as she as they encircled her, facing outward, machetes and pistols drawn. They were speaking French too, and again Gregor was mentioned.
What were they saying? Lacey wished now she'd taken French instead of Spanish.
The Brit's friends lay writhing, kicking, and gasping on their backs and bellies, but he was still on his knees, glaring at Olivia.
"You!" His voice was faint, and sounded as if someone were strangling him. "You did this! You're responsible!" He began a faltering crawl toward her.
"Keep him away!" Olivia said.
The Brit pulled his machete from his belt and tried to use it as a crutch to regain his feet. "I'll see you—"
One of Olivia's guards stepped forward then and, holding his machete like a baseball bat, took a two-handed swing. The blade sliced through the Brit's neck with an indescribable tearing sound, sending the head flying. But no gout of blood sprayed the room as the body flopped forward onto its chest and lay still next to the other three fallen undead, now equally still.
And the head ... the head rolled toward Lacey's face. She shut her eyes, bracing herself if it rolled against her. She couldn't allow herself to move, couldn't give herself away, no matter what.
What was happening here? Undead dropping dead, fighting and killing each other. What the hell was going on? It had something to do with someone named Gregor, but what?
Lacey opened her eyes again and stifled a gasp as she found herself almost nose to nose with the Brit. His eyelids blinked and his lips were moving, as if he was trying to tell her something.
Bile rose in Lacey's throat and she squeezed her eyes shut again.
GREGOR . . .
I'm awake! Gregor thought. I survived!
He didn't know how long it had been since the blast. A few minutes? A few hours? It couldn't have been too long—it was still night. He could see the moonlight through the huge hole that had been ripped in the wall.
He tried to move but could not. In fact, he couldn't feel anything. Anything. But he could hear. And he heard someone picking through the rubble toward him. He tried to turn his head but could not. Who was there? One of his own kind—please let it be one of his own kind.
When he saw the flashlight beam he knew it was one of the living. He began to despair. He was utterly helpless here. What had that explosion done to him?
As the light came closer, he saw that it was the woman, the she-devil. She appeared to be unscathed .. .
And she wore the headpiece of a nun.
She shone the beam in his face and he blinked.
"Dear sweet Jesus!" she said, her voice hushed with awe. "You're not dead yet? Even in this condition?"
He tried to tell her how she would pay for this, how she would suffer the tortures of the damned and beg for death, but his jaw wasn't working right, and he had no voice.
"So what are we going to do with you, Mister Vampire?" she said. "Your friends might show up and find a way to fix you up. Not that I can see how that'd be possible, but I wouldn't put anything past you vipers."
What was she saying? What did she mean? What had happened to him?
"If I had a good supply of holy water I could pour it over you, but I want to conserve what I've got."
She was quiet a moment, then turned and walked off. Had she decided to leave him here? He hoped so. At least that way he had a chance.
But if she wanted to kill him, why hadn't she said anything about driving a stake through his heart?
He tried to move but his body wouldn't respond. Somehow the blast had paralyzed him. He noticed his vision growing dim, his sense of hearing fading. What was happening? He felt as if he might be drifting toward true death ...
No! That that couldn't be. He was only paralyzed.
Through his misting vision Gregor saw her coming back. Her hands were bright yellow. How? Why?
"The only thing I can think of doing is to set you on the east end of the porch and let the sun finish you."
No! Please! Not that.
The woman rested the flashlight on a broken timber and reached for his face. He saw now that she wore yellow rubber gloves. He tried to cringe away, but again—no response from his body. She grabbed him by his hair and . . . lifted him. How could she be so strong? Vertigo spun him around as she looked him in the face.
"You can still see, can't you? Maybe you'd better take a look at yourself."
Vertigo again as she twisted his head around, and then he saw the hallway, or what was left of it. Mass destruction . . . shattered timbers, the stairs blown away, and . . .
Pieces of his body—his arms and legs torn and scattered, his torso twisted and eviscerated, his intestines stretched and ripped, internal organs reduced to large, unrecognizable smears.
As his vision faded to black in the final fall toward true death, Gregor wished his lungs were still attached. So he could scream. Just once.
LACEY . . .
A stink filled Lacey's nostrils as she noticed that Olivia's rapid-fire French seemed to be fading away. She dared another look. The Brit's face was slack now and the flesh was starting to decompose. She lifted her head to look beyond him and saw Olivia and her crew backing into a stairwell, heading down to what Lacey assumed was the basement.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Lacey raised her head further and looked around. Except for the bodies of the four dead vampires, she was alone. She'd been forgotten. But for how long?
She struggled to rise, groaning with the pain in her joints and muscles, but especially in her pelvis. She slipped on the wet floor and banged her elbow as she went down. She tried again, clinging to the wall, using it to steady herself as the room spun about her. Clenching her teeth against a wave of nausea, she rose to her feet and hugged the wall.
When the room steadied, she looked down at her bloody, naked body and wanted to retch. What did they do to her?
She'd deal with that later. Right now she had to get out of here and back to the church. But where was here} She knew from the signs on the wall that she was in a Post Office. But how did she find the church once she got out?
First things first, she told herself. Get out of this undead nest, then worry about finding your way back.
Still holding the wall, she edged toward the doors. She looked longingly at the clothes on the corpses of the dead vampires, but their rot was already seeping through the fabric. She'd rather be naked.