Thirst No. 1 Read online

  Of course, they didn’t have guns.

  A bullet in the head could probably kill me, I think.

  “Am I really a vampire?” Joel asks, still trying to catch up with reality.

  “You’re not an FBI agent anymore,” I mutter.

  He shakes himself as he straightens up. “But I am. Or at least they think I am. Let me talk to them.”

  “Wait.” I stop him, thinking. “I can’t have them examine Eddie’s remains. I don’t trust what will happen to his blood. I don’t trust what his blood can still do. I must destroy it, and to do that I must burn down this house.”

  Outside, through a bullhorn, a gruff-voiced man calls for us to come out with our hands in the air. Such an unimaginative way of asking us to surrender.

  Joel knew what Eddie had been capable of. “I was wondering why everything smelled like gasoline,” he remarks. “You light the place on fire—I have no problem with that. But then what are you going to do? You can’t fight this army.”

  “Can’t I?” I peer out the front window and raise my eyes to the rhythmic thrumming in the sky. They have a helicopter. Why? All to catch the feared serial killer? Yes, such a beast would demand heavy forces. Yet I sense a curious undercurrent in the assembled men and women. It reminds me of when Slim, Yaksha’s assassin, came looking for me. Slim’s people had been warned that I was not normal. As a result, I barely escaped. In the same way, these people know that there is something unusual about me.

  I can almost read their thoughts.

  This strikes me as strange.

  I have always been able to sense emotions. Now, can I read thoughts, too?

  What power has Yaksha’s blood given me?

  “Alisa,” Joel says, calling me by my modern name. “Even you cannot break free of this circle.” He notices I’m lost in thought. “Alisa?”

  “They think there is a monster in here,” I whisper. “I hear their minds.” I grip Joel. “What did you tell them about me?”

  He shakes his head. “Some things.”

  “Did you tell them I was powerful? Fast?”

  He hesitates, then sighs. “I told them too much. But they don’t know you’re a vampire.” He, too, peers through the curtains. “They were getting suspicious about how the others died, torn to pieces. They had my file on Eddie Fender, including where his mother lived. They must have tracked us here that way.”

  I shake my head. “I cannot surrender. It is against my nature.”

  He takes my hands. “You can’t fight them all. You’ll die.”

  I have to smile. “More of them would die.” I lose my smile. “But if I do make a stand here, you will die also.” I am indecisive. His advice is logical. Yet my heart betrays me. I feel doom closing in. I speak reluctantly. “Talk to them. Say what you think best. But I tell you—I will not leave this house without setting it ablaze. There will be no more Eddie Fenders.”

  “I understand.” He turns for the door, then stops. He speaks with his back to me. “I understand why you did it.”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “Would I have died?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He smiles gently, not turning to look at me. I feel the smile. “Then I must forgive you,” he says. He raises one hand above his head, and with the other reaches for the doorknob. “I hope my boss is out there.”

  Through a crack in the curtains I follow his progress. Joel calls out his identity and a group of FBI agents step forward. I can tell they’re FBI by their suits. Joel is one of them. He looks the same as he did yesterday. Yet they don’t greet him as a friend. In an instant I grasp the full extent of their suspicions. They know that whatever plague of death has been sweeping L.A. is communicable. Eddie and I left too many bodies behind. Also, I remember the cop I freed. The one whose blood I sampled. The one I told I was a vampire. The authorities may not have believed that man, but they will think I am some kind of demon from hell.

  Joel is handcuffed and dragged into an armored vehicle. He casts me a despairing glance before he vanishes. I curse the fact that I listened to him. Now I, too, must be taken into the vehicle. Above all, I must stay close to Joel. I don’t know what he’ll tell them. I don’t know what they’ll do with his blood.

  Many of them are going to die, I realize.

  The SWAT team cocks their weapons.

  They call again for me to surrender.

  I twirl the striker on the lighter and touch it to the wood I have gathered around Eddie’s body. I say goodbye to his ugly head. Hope the Popsicles you suck in hell cool your cracked and bleeding lips. Casually, while the inferno spreads behind me, I step out the front door.

  They are on me in an instant. Before I can reach the curb, my arms are pulled behind me and I am handcuffed. They don’t even read me my rights. You have the right to a pint of blood. If you cannot afford one, the court will bleed a little for you. Yeah, I think sarcastically as they shove me into the back of the armored vehicle where they threw Joel, I will be given all my rights as an American citizen. Behind me I see them trying to put out the fire. Too bad they brought the firepower but forgot the fire engines. The house is a funeral pyre. Eddie Fender will leave no legacy to haunt mankind.

  But what about me? Joel?

  Our legs are chained to the floor of the vehicle. Three men with automatic weapons and ghostly faces lit from a single overhead light sit on a metal bench across from us, weapons trained on us. No one speaks. Another two armed men sit up front, beside the driver. One carries a shotgun, the other a machine gun. They are separated from us by what I know is bulletproof glass. It also acts as soundproofing. I can break it with my little finger.

  But what about the miniature army around us? They won’t break so easily. As the door is closed and we roll forward, I hear a dozen cars move into position around us. The chopper follows overhead, a spotlight aimed down on our car. Their precautions border on the fanatical. They know I am capable of extraordinary feats of strength. This realization sinks deep into my consciousness. For five thousand years, except for a few isolated incidents, I have moved unknown through human history. Now I am exposed. Now I am the enemy. No matter what happens, whether we escape or die trying, my life will never be the same.

  I’ll have to tear up my credit cards.

  “Where are you taking us?” I ask.

  “You are to remain silent,” the middle one says. He has the face of a drill sergeant, leathery skin, deeply etched lines cut in from years of barking commands. Like his partners, he wears a flak jacket. I think I would look nice in one. I catch his eye and smile faintly.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Are you afraid of a young woman?”

  “Silence,” he snaps, shaking his weapon, shifting uncomfortably. My stare is strong medicine. It can burn holes in brain neurons. My voice is hypnotic, when I wish it to be. I could sing a grizzly to sleep. I let my smile widen.

  “‘May I have a cigarette?” I ask.

  “No,” he says flatly.

  I lean forward as far as I can. These men, for all their plans, have not come as well prepared as Slim’s people did. Yaksha had them bring cuffs made of a special alloy that I could not break. I can snap these like paper. Yet they are seated close together, these SWAT experts, and they have three separate weapons leveled directly at me. They could conceivably kill me before I could take out all of them. For that reason I have to take a subtle approach.

  Relatively speaking.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told about me,” I continue. “But I think it’s way out of line. I have done nothing wrong. Also, my friend here is an FBI agent. He shouldn’t be treated this way. You should let him go.” I stare deep into the man’s eyes, and I know all he sees are my widening black pupils, growing as large as the dark sides of twin moons. I speak softly. “You should let him go now.”

  The man reaches for his keys, then hesitates. The hesitation is a problem. Pushing a person’s will is always a hit-or-miss proposition. His partners are watc
hing him now, afraid to look at me. The youngest one rises half off his bench. He is suddenly scared and threatens me with his weapon.

  “You shut your goddamn mouth!” he yells.

  I lean back and chuckle. As I do, I catch his eye. Fear has made him vulnerable; he is an easy mark. “What are you afraid of?” I ask. “That your commander will let me go? Or that you’ll turn around and shoot him?” I bore my gaze into his head. “Yeah, you could shoot him. Yeah, that might be fun.”

  “Alisa,” Joel whispers, not enjoying my game.

  The young man and the commander exchange worried glances. The third guy has sat up, panting, not really understanding what is happening. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joel shaking his head. Let him see me at my worst, I think. It is the best way to begin our new relationship, without illusions. My eyes dart from the commander to the young one. The temperature inside their craniums is increasing. Ever so slightly, each weapon begins to veer toward the other man’s chest. Yet I know I’ll have to push them a lot harder to get them to let me go or kill each other. It is not necessary. I can do it on my own. Really, I just want to distract them a bit—

  Before I break them in two.

  With their guns aimed away from me, they are vulnerable when I suddenly shoot my legs up, snapping my ankle chains. The third man, the one I have left untouched, reacts quickly, by human standards. But he is moving in slow motion compared to a five-thousand-year-old vampire. As he reaches for the trigger on his gun, my right foot lashes out and my big toe crushes his flak jacket, his breastbone, and the beating heart beneath the two. The heart beats no more. The man crumples and falls into a pitiful ball.

  “Should have given me the cigarette,” I say to the commander as I snap my handcuffs and reach over to take his head between my palms. His eyes grow round. His lips move. He wants to tell me something, maybe apologize. I’m not in the mood. He is putty in my hands, Silly Putty once I squeeze my palms together and crack his skull. Now his mouth falls open as his eyes slowly close. His brains leak out the back, over his starched collar. I don’t want his flak jacket.

  I glance over at the young one.

  He’s more scared than before.

  I just stare at him. He has forgotten his weapon.

  “Die,” I whisper intently. My will is poisonous, when I am mad, and now, with Yaksha’s blood in my veins, the poison is worse than the venom of a cobra. The young man falls to the floor.

  His breathing stops.

  Joel looks as if he will be sick.

  “Kill me,” he swears. “I cannot stand this.”

  “I am what I am.” I break his chains. “You will become what I am.”

  He is bitter. He has no illusions. “Never.”

  I nod. “I said the same thing to Yaksha.” I soften, touch his arm. “I cannot let them take you or me into custody. We could have a thousand Eddies running around.”

  “They just want to talk to us,” he says.

  I shake my head as I glance at the men up front, unaware, so far, of what has happened to their comrades. “They know we are not normal,” I whisper.

  Joel pleads. “You can escape far more easily without me. Fewer people will have to die. Leave me behind. Let them catch me in a shower of bullets. My blood will soak the pavement, nothing more.”

  “You are a brave man, Joel Drake.”

  He grimaces as he glances at what I have done to the others. “I have spent my life trying to help people. Not destroy them.”

  I stare softly into his eyes. “I can’t just let you die. You don’t know what I have sacrificed to keep you alive.”

  He pauses. “What did you sacrifice?”

  I sigh. “The love of God.” I turn toward the men at the front. “We will discuss this later.”

  Joel stops me one last time. “Don’t kill when you don’t have to.”

  “I will do what I can,” I promise.

  The bulletproof glass is two inches thick. Although the ceiling of the van forces me to crouch, I am able to leap far enough off the floor to plant two swift kicks onto the barrier. I have exceptionally strong legs. The glass shatters into thousands of little pellets. Before the two armed men can turn, I reach forward and knock their heads together. They collapse in a mangled heap. They are unconscious, not dead. I remove the revolver from the hip holster of the driver and place the barrel to his head.

  “The men in the back are dead,” I whisper in his ear. “If you glance in your rearview mirror you will see it is true. But I have allowed your partners up front to live. That is because I am a nice girl. I am nice and I am nasty. If you tell me where we are headed, I will be nice to you. If you don’t, if you try to alert your partners on the road ahead of us or behind us, I will tear out your eyes and swallow them.” I pause. “Where are you taking us?”

  He has trouble speaking. “C-Fourteen.”

  “Is that a police station?”

  “No.”

  “What is it? Quickly!”

  He coughs, frightened. “A high-security facility.”

  “Who runs it?”

  He swallows. “The government.”

  “Are there labs there?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only heard stories. I think so.”

  “Interesting.” I tap his head lightly with his gun. “What’s your name?”

  “Lenny Treber.” He throws me a nervous glance. Sweat pours off him in a river. “What’s your name?”

  “I have many names, Lenny. We are in a tight fix here. You and I and my friend. How do we get out of it?”

  He can’t stop shaking. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want to go to C-Fourteen. I want you to help me escape this dragnet. It is to your advantage to help, and to the advantage of your fellow cops. I don’t want to leave several dozen women widowed.” I pause. “Are you married, Lenny?”

  He tries to calm himself with deep breaths. “Yes.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t want your children to grow up without a father, do you?”

  “No.”

  “What can you do to help me and my friend?”

  It is hard for him to concentrate. “I don’t know.”

  “You will have to do better than that. What happens if you radio ahead and say you need to take a bathroom break?”

  “They won’t believe it. They’ll know you have escaped.”

  “Is this van bulletproof?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they tell you about me?”

  “That you were dangerous.”

  “Anything else?” I ask.

  He is near tears. “They said you can kill with your bare hands.” He catches a clear view of the brain tissue dripping out of the commander’s skull. It is a gruesome sight, even by my flexible standards. A shudder runs through Lenny’s body. “Oh God,” he gasps.

  I pat him sweetly on the back. “I do have my bad side,” I admit. “But you cannot judge me by a few dead bodies. I don’t want to kill you, Lenny, now that we’re on a first-name basis. Think of another way for us to escape the escorts.”

  He struggles. “There isn’t one. This job has the highest security imaginable. They’ll open fire if I try to get away from them.”

  “Those were the orders?”

  “Yes. Under no circumstances were you to be allowed to escape.”

  I ponder this. They must know me, even better than Lenny thinks. How’s that possible? Have I left that much evidence behind? I think of the Coliseum, the necks I broke, the javelins I threw. It’s possible, I suppose.

  “I am going to escape,” I tell Lenny, picking up the dropped machine gun and shotgun from the front seats. I also yank a flak jacket off one of the men. “One way or the other.”

  “They’ll open fire,” Lenny protests.

  “Let them.” I take ammunition for both weapons from the unconscious men. I gesture to Joel, who is still getting adjusted to his vampire senses. He’s staring around t
he interior of the van as if he’s stoned. “Put on one of those flak jackets,” I tell him.

  “Does there have to be shooting?” he asks.

  “There will be a lot of shooting.” I speak to Lenny. “What’s the top speed of this van?”

  “Eighty miles an hour.”

  I groan. “I need a cop car.”

  “There are a lot of them behind and in front of us,” Lenny says.

  I peer at the chopper in the sky. “They hang close to the ground.”

  “They’re heavily armed,” Lenny says. “They won’t let you escape.”

  I climb in the front seat beside him, shoving the men aside. The flak jacket is a little large on me. “You think I should surrender?”

  “Yes.” He adds quickly, “That’s just my opinion.”

  “You just follow my orders if you want to live,” I say, studying the cruisers in front, in back. Sixteen altogether—two officers in each, I know. Plus there are at least three unmarked cars—FBI agents. It continues to amaze me how quickly they took Joel into custody. They hardly gave him a chance to speak. I call back to him, “Come up here. We’re going to switch vehicles in a few minutes.”

  Joel pokes his head close to my shoulder, flak jacket in place. “The chopper is a problem,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how good a driver you are or how many cop cars you disable. It’ll stay with us, lighting us up.”

  “Maybe. Put on a seat belt.” I brace a foot on the dashboard and point to an approaching alley. “There, Lenny, I want you to take a hard left. Floor it as soon as you come out of the turn.”

  Lenny sweats. “Okay.”

  I start to hand Joel Lenny’s revolver. “Don’t be afraid to cover my back.” I pause and catch his eye. “You are on my side, aren’t you?”

  Joel hesitates. “I won’t kill anybody.”

  “Will you try to kill me?”

  “No.”

  I give him the revolver. “All right.” The alley closes. “Get ready, Lenny. No tricks. Just put as much distance between us and the procession as you can.”