To his annoyance, despite his enhanced hearing, he couldn’t quite make out what the other Kindred were murmuring to each other, so he still had no idea what they were doing wandering around town. He suspected that they were on a scouting mission, not that it mattered. What was important was that Melpomene had supposedly arranged for some of Prince Roger’s flunkies to attack them. When they did, Dan was going to jump into the fray and save the intruders’ butts.
He just hoped that he was up to the job. Melpomene’s blood had made him more powerful than before, but he knew damn well that he still wasn’t Supervamp. The ancient undead had given him an ace in the hole to employ in this particular situation, but he had no way of knowing how well it was going to work. Like everything else about his new boss, he was taking it on faith..
Engines rumbled in the night. After a moment, Dan could tell that they were drawing nearer.
He assumed that the noise was the prince’s troops approaching. Until recently, Sarasota had been a hedonistic artists’ colony, beach resort and college town, where people partied through the night. But in the days since the mysterious killer the news media were calling Dracula had begun his reign of terror, the kine had begun cowering in their homes. After twelve, the dark streets were empty except for the undead.
Still, Dan didn’t know that Roger’s goons were on their way. He’d better hold off using Melpomene’s gift until he was sure. Once the stuff was gone, it was gone for good.
One of the foreign vampires, whom Dan had tentatively identified as the leader, was a tall, teenage-looking guy with bleached white eyebrows, mohawk and goatee. He was wearing white leather gloves with steel studs on the back, a voluminous white leather overcoat with an intricate pattern of rivets on the back and shoulders, a torn white tank top, camo'patterned parachute pants, and high-top sneakers. He spoke to his companions, and all four of them retreated into the narrow gap separating two of the shops.
Dan frowned. He hoped that the strangers wouldn’t conceal themselves so well that the prince’s searchers would fail to spot them. If that happened, Melpomene’s scheme would fall apart. Dan guessed that, at that point, his only option would be simply to reveal himself to the intruders and try to win their trust; he knew from long and bitter experience just how well that ploy was likely to work.
Wearily, he wondered for the millionth time just why his fellow Kindred disliked him so. He’d always been popular when he was a kid, had always been in the thick of things, playing varsity football and basketball, organizing a school computer club, a welcome guest at everybody’s parties. His fellow soldiers had liked him, too. After his transformation, the universal loathing with which even other Caitiff regarded him had come as almost as much of a shock as the Hunger itself.
Wind gusted, lightning flared, thunder boomed; the storm was drawing closer. An instant later, five motorcycles and a Mustang convertible turned onto Bayshore. Dan imagined that the bikers at least were Brujah; many of Judith Morgan’s progeny shared her enthusiasm for Harleys. The headlights momentarily dazzled his newly sensitive eyes.
As he’d feared, for a moment it looked as if Prince Roger’s search party would speed right past the strangers’ hiding place. But then the driver of the Mustang blew a blast on his horn, and everyone braked sharply. The convertible’s tires squealed, and the bikes spun in tight arcs as their riders turned them around.
Dan took the tarnished silver vial Melpomene had given him out of his pocket, hastily unscrewed the cap and tossed the contents down his throat.
The Methuselah had told him the liquid was giants’ blood, the vitae of actual jack-and-the-Beanstalk-style ogres vvho’d walked the earth at the dawn of history. He couldn’t help doubting that such creatures had ever existed, even though his new patron swore that she’d seen them with her own eyes. At any rate, whatever the liquid was, he’d been rather hoping it would give him a flash of ecstasy comparable to what he’d experienced when drinking Melpomene’s blood.
It didn’t. The elixir tasted so bitter that he nearly retched it back up. An instant later, a burst of agony racked his stomach. As his knees buckled, sprawling him on the sidewalk, he wondered if Melpomene had poisoned him, betraying him for some mad, inscrutable reason. She had warned him that she was neither as kindly nor as sane as she appeared.
Up ahead, Judy Morgan herself, dressed provocatively as usual in her Civil War cap, a skimpy halter, skintight jeans, and boots, pulled a machine pistol from her saddlebag and gunned her Harley toward the narrow space into which the strangers had disappeared. The other bikers readied their own weapons and followed her, of necessity going single file. The convertible shot forward, its tires squealing; no doubt the driver intended to circle the block.
The cramping in Dan’s gut eased, though a foul aftertaste lingered in his mouth. Heat tingled through his muscles and he imagined that he could feel his body swelling larger. Suddenly he was so full of energy that the thought of remaining still for another second was utterly intolerable. He surged to his feet, then bounded lightly onto the roof of the ice-cream shop beside which he’d been hiding.
As he raced down the strip of tourist traps, vaulting across the alleys between them when necessary, the battle ahead of him gradually came into view. At first he could only see headlights and the muzzle flashes of the guns, a diminutive counterpoint to the lightning strobing in the thunderheads above. Then, as raindrops began to patter on the shingles beneath his pounding feet, he glimpsed the shadowy forms of the hunters and their quarry.
It looked as if, when the strangers had fled into the street behind Bayshore, another contingent of the prince’s flunkies had intercepted them and pinned them down in a construction site. Now the intruders were crouched down behind the scant cover afforded by the low beginnings of concrete-block walls. Motorcycles snarled, circling the makeshift fortress, and firearms chattered and banged. The smells of gun smoke and engine exhaust hung in the air.
The strangers were outnumbered three-to-one and manifestly in trouble. Just the way I wanted it, Dan thought sardonically. Reaching under his khaki Army surplus jacket for his Smith and Wesson Undercover .38, he leaped down into the street.
Dan shot one biker in the back of the head before the prince’s troops even realized that a new opponent had materialized in their midst. The wounded Brujah tumbled from his seat. His motorcycle rolled a few more feet and overturned, striking sparks from the pavement as it skidded along on its side.
Dan heard an engine roar and glimpsed movement from the corner of his eye. He hurled himself to one side. The Mustang convertible shot past, missing him by inches, and smashed into the base of a storefront display window. The glass shattered, showering the car’s newly crumpled hood with glittering shards. The vehicle’s horn began to blare, adding to the cacophony of the battle.
The driver, a shaven-headed Kindred whose brow was now gashed and bleeding, scrambled out of the wreckage, fangs bared and a revolver in his hand. Dan could have tried shooting this opponent, too, but he realized that he didn’t want to. With the vitality of the giants’ blood roaring inside him, he wanted to use his body to the fullest, wanted to humble his foes with his bare hands. Casting his weapon aside, he lunged at the other vampire.
The driver’s gun barked once, but if the shot hit Dan, he didn’t even feel it. Before the shaven-headed Kindred could fire again, his assailant was on top of him. Dan hit him in the face, a punch that broke bone and sent him reeling back against his car; then he pounced on him.
The hairless Kindred struggled frantically, perhaps trying to bring his gun to bear. He was far stronger than a mortal, but nowhere near as powerful as his opponent. Dan sank his fingers into the other vampire’s skull as if the bone were no more resistant than modelling clay, then, with one sudden motion, wrenched his head off.
Since undead hearts didn’t beat, blood didn’t spurt from the raw space between the dead vampire’s shoulders; it flowed copiously enough, however, suffusing the air with its intoxicating scent. With a s
udden pang of guilt, Dan remembered that he hadn’t intended to destroy any of Prince Roger’s vassals. Ultimately, he was on their side. But the feverish excitement induced by Melpomene’s potion had opened the door for the Beast to take control.
He did his best to shrug off a spasm of self-disgust. He was still in the middle of the battle; he had no time for remorse. Still clutching the severed head in his right hand, he spun around to survey the rest of the combatants.
Another biker, a moon-faced Asian girl, was hurtling toward him, riding no-handed, firing bursts from her automatic rifle. Dan threw the head at her, but it sailed past her, bounced on the pavement and rolled away into the darkness. He pivoted back toward the convertible, ripped one of its doors off the hinges and hurled that, skimming it like a Frisbee.
The missile slammed into her, knocking her and her motorcycle over. Tumbling end over end, the rifle flew from her hands. Instantly, moving with superhuman speed, her fanged, pallid face a mask of fury, she scrambled out from under her bike, flipped open a butterfly knife, and charged him.
Seeking his .38, Dan looked around his feet, but he couldn’t see where the revolver had fallen. Fists clenched, he shifted his body into a T-stance the way his unarmed' combat instructor at boot camp had taught him.
The Brujah sprinted as fast as a cheetah. It only took her a second to close to striking range. Her arm a blur, she stabbed and slashed at him repeatedly. Bursts of pain flowered in his chest.
But even if he hadn’t been pumped up on giants’ blood, Dan could have endured a few jabs in the torso. In any case, though the Asian girl clearly wasn’t a skilled knife fighter, he wasn’t sure that he could react quickly enough to parry her attacks. Better to concentrate on landing some blows of his own. He lunged at her, kicking and jabbing.
Still hacking and stabbing, her almond eyes aglitter with bloodlust, she gave ground. She ducked and slipped his first five attacks, but swung her arm up to block the sixth.
That was a mistake. With her pantherish speed and grace, she had no trouble connecting, but she simply lacked the strength to deflect the blow. His fist drove on to smash her nose flat, snap her neck and fling her eight feet backwards. She lay on the ground and thrashed.
Dan looked around. More of the prince’s subjects were turning in his direction. Someone yelled, “Get the diabolist!” in a high, excited voice.
Okay, Dan thought, let’s see just how strong I really am. He scrambled back to the convertible, dug his fingers into the body and, with a grunt of effort, heaved it over his head. The horn stopped blowing and the suspension groaned. Bits of broken glass and one of the hubcaps fell tinkling and clanking around his feet.
Dan had known other vampires who could lift a car, but they had had to do it with a certain amount of care, taking heed of the vehicle’s center of gravity; they couldn’t just jerk it into the air any old way. Confronted with such a spectacle, even the Brujah, whose battle rage was proverbial, faltered momentarily in their attack.
Bellowing, Dan threw the wreck at Judy Morgan, the berserker queen herself. It missed, landing short with a deafening crash, but he received the satisfaction of seeing her dark eyes widen in dismay.
Now all the prince’s people were gaping or glaring at him. He beckoned to the embattled vampires in the unfinished building. Come on! he implored them silently. I drew away the enemy’s attention. This is your chance to break out of the circle.
As if they’d heard him, the strangers burst out of the concrete-block enclosure, guns blazing. Some of the Brujah jerked as the bullets caught them in the back. One, his head bursting like a melon, toppled off his bike.
The foreigners drove through their would-be captors and back into the narrow, weed-infested space between the tourist joints. Dan scrambled after them.
The vampire in white had waited at the mouth of the alley. As soon as Dan rushed past him, the stranger, who must have been carrying his sawed-off shotgun inside his voluminous coat, pumped three blasts into the street, perhaps in the hope that the barrage would discourage pursuit. Then he wheeled and pounded after his fellow fugitives. Catching up with Dan, he said, “We have a car. It’s about three blocks over and two blocks up.”
Since Dan had been tailing the strangers, he knew where they’d parked, but he couldn’t see any advantage in saying so. “Let’s cut through the Gardens,” he replied. “The enemy might have trouble following us through all the trees and bushes.”
By the time he and the white-clad vampire caught up with the other invaders, Dan could hear Judy Morgan shouting orders. The pursuit was getting organized again and would no doubt be.after them in a matter of moments. Somewhere to the north motors growled, getting louder by the second. It probably meant that enemy reinforcements were arriving.
The fleeing vampires raced across the street to the twelve-foot chain-link fence encircling the Tropical Gardens. Except for the guy in white, each was wounded and bloody. Dan didn’t doubt that they could all scramble over the barrier anyway, but he didn’t want to take the time. He grabbed the fence with both hands and pulled in opposite directions, ripping a hole in it, shredding the steel mesh like tissue paper. He and his companions scrambled through the gap.
Before them extended a flat expanse of land filled with palms and flowering shrubs. Night-blooming orchids glowed in the dimness, filling the air with their perfume. In the dark, the unnatural order imposed by the establishment’s gardeners was scarcely evident; Dan could almost imagine that he was entering a true jungle. For a moment, the contrast between the tranquillity ahead and the carnage behind seemed nearly surreal. Then lightning blazed, thunder roared a split second after, and the rain began to fall in torrents, drenching him instantly, hammering the leaves and blossoms as if some inimical deity sought to deny the fugitives even the illusion of peace.
Dan grinned savagely — the downpour would make it harder for the Brujah to spot the fugitives. He and his companions raced on, not keeping to the paved paths but plunging through the foliage. At their backs, engines snarled and headlights slashed across the darkness as the bikers rode into the Gardens. Evidently they’d enlarged the hole in the fence.
The fugitives dashed through a sort of open-air religious exhibit, hand-carved dioramas illustrating the life of Christ; Jesus seemed to glower disapprovingly from his cross. Beyond that, the vampires found a number of steel cages with paths winding among them. The zoo. Roused by the storm, the rumble of the motorcycles, or simply sensing the presence of their supernatural visitors, the animals were awake. Some were cowering at the backs of the cages, some were pacing, and some snarled at the unliving creatures outside.
The growl of the Harleys drew closer. One of the strangers, a petite brunette with sodden bangs plastered to her forehead and a bloody hole in the bottom of her tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt, turned to the Kindred in white. “I think they’re going to find us again!” she said.
“What we need,” said the vampire with the mohawk, “is another diversion. Something else running through the dark.”
“I get your drift,” said Dan. He turned to the cage on his left, gripped the door and ripped it off its hinges. The hulking black gorilla inside the enclosure glared at him and bared its teeth.
“Get back,” Dan said to his fellow vampires. “It won’t come out if you’re standing around the door.” The other Kindred obligingly spread out. Two of them, who must have had some degree of inhuman strength of their own, started breaking open a cage with a leopard in it.
Exposing his own fangs, Dan edged into the gorilla’s cage and started to circle to the primate’s left. He hoped if he got behind it, it would retreat in the opposite direction and out the door. Instead it lunged at him, its huge hands raised to grab and maul him.
Dodging its initial attack, Dan stepped to its side and punched it in the ribs. The ape grunted and staggered. Dan
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circled behind it, seized it and sank his fangs into its hairy back. The gorilla screamed.
The primate’s blood was rank, not sweet like the blood of humans, but with Dan’s own vitae leaking away through the knife cuts in his chest, it was enticing anyway. Repressing a witless desire to cling to the animal and feed, he released it and kicked it in the ass.
Cowed, the gorilla scrambled out of the cage and vanished into the rain. Dan followed the animal through the door, froze for a moment to let the fleeing leopard hurtle past him, then dashed to an enclosure with four bears in it.
The fugitives opened half-a-dozen cages in less than a minute. “That will have to be enough,” said the vampire in white. “We need to move on.”
The Kindred ran, out of the zoo and back into the greenery, weaving through the secondary trunks of a huge banyan tree. Behind them the Brujah were still too close, but now their guns began to bang and crackle, firing shots that didn’t come anywhere near their quarries. Sounding startled, some of the hunters cried out.
“Yes!” said the vampire in the Grateful Dead shirt, delighted that their ploy was working.
The fugitives raced around a flamingo lagoon. The rain roiled the surface of the lake with a sound like bacon sizzling in a pan.
Beyond the lagoon was the border of the park. When he peered through the fence, Dan was pleasantly surprised to see the strangers’ vehicle. The green van, nondescript except for the dark one-way glass in the windows, was parked on the street almost directly in front of him. Their headlong flight had taken them straight to it. Either they’d been lucky, or the Kindred in white, who’d more or less led his companions through the Gardens, had a keen sense of direction.
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