by Darren Shan
"What's the plan?" Harkat asked as we were making camp in the middle of a small forest, sheltered from the sun under the intertwining branches and leaves.
"They will wait for full daylight to attack," Mr. Crepsley said, keeping his eyes low and his voice lower. "We will act as though all is normal and pretend to sleep. When they come, we deal with them."
"Will you be OK in the sun?" I asked. Though we were sheltered where we were, a battle might draw us out of the shade.
"The rays will not harm me during the short time it will take to deal with these stalkers," Mr. Crepsley replied.
Making beds for ourselves in the moss and leaves on the ground, we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and settled down. "Of course, they... might just be curious," Harkat muttered. "They could simply want to see... what a real-life vampire looks like."
"They move too keenly to be mere spectators," Mr. Crepsley disagreed. "They are here on business."
"I just remembered," I whispered. "The guy in the shop was buying guns!''
"Most vampire hunters come properly armed," Mr. Crepsley grunted. "Gone are the nights when the fools toted only a hammer and wooden stake."
There was no more talk after that. We lay still, eyes closed (except for Harkat, who covered his lidless eyes with his cloak), breathing evenly, feigning sleep.
Seconds passed slowly, taking a long time to become minutes and an eternity to become hours. It had been six years since my last taste of vicious combat. My limbs felt unnaturally cold, and stiff icy snakes of fear coiled and uncoiled inside the walls of my stomach. I kept flexing my fingers beneath the folds of my cloak, never far from my sword, ready to draw.
Shortly after midday, the hunters moved in for the kill. There were three of them, spread out in a semicircle, coming at us from the north, southwest, and southeast. At first I could only hear the rustling of leaves as they approached, and the occasional snap of a twig. But as they closed in on us, I became aware of their heavy breathing, the creaks of their tense bones, the panicked pounding of their hearts.
The hunters came to a standstill ten or twelve yards away, tucked behind trees, preparing themselves to attack. There was a long, nervous pause — then the sound of a gun being slowly cocked.
"Now!" Mr. Crepsley roared, springing to his feet, launching himself at the human closest to him.
While Mr. Crepsley closed in on his assailant at incredible speed, Harkat and I targeted the other two humans. The one I'd set my sights on cursed loudly, stepped out from behind his tree, brought his rifle up, and fired. A bullet whizzed past me, missing by several inches. Before he could fire again, I was upon him.
I wrenched the rifle from the human's hands and tossed it away. A gun went off behind me, but it was fired almost straight into the air, and I guessed Harkat must have been grappling with his foe. There was no time to check on my friend — the man in front of me had already drawn a long hunting knife — so I slid my sword out, ready for action.
The man's eyes widened when he saw the sword — he'd painted the area around his eyes with red circles of what looked like blood — then narrowed. "You're just a kid," he snarled, slashing at me with his knife.
"No," I disagreed, stepping out of range of his knife, jabbing at him with my sword. "I'm much more."
As the human slashed at me again, I brought my sword up and out in a smooth arcing slice, through the flesh, muscles, and bones of his right hand, severing three of his fingers, disarming him in an instant.
The human cried out in agony and fell away from me. I took advantage of the moment to see how Mr. Crepsley and Harkat were faring. Mr. Crepsley had already killed his human and was striding toward Harkat, who was wrestling with his opponent. Harkat appeared to have the advantage of his foe, but Mr. Crepsley was moving into place to back him up if the battle took a turn for the worse.
Satisfied that all was going in our favor, I switched my attention back to the man on the ground, psyching myself up for the unpleasant task of making an end of him. To my surprise, I found him grinning horribly at me.
"You should have taken my other hand too!" he growled.
My eyes fixed on the man's left hand and my breath caught in my throat — he was clutching a hand grenade close to his chest!
"Don't move!" he shouted as I lurched toward him. He half-pressed down on the detonator with his thumb. "If this goes off, it takes you with me!"
look for HUNTERS OF THE DUSK, coming april 2004