anyway popped off of it, concentric circles of flickering blue light spreading from the points of impact. I dashed down the hall and around the corner, the blasting rod in my right hand lifted and ready.
There were two vampires in front of a door to an office. One of them was on the floor, thrashing and hissing in agony, clutching at its flabby belly. It was leaking blood all over the floor. Several dozen bullet holes—exit holes—in the door explained why. The injuries wouldn’t kill the vamp, but they were painful and robbed it of the source of its supernatural power—the blood it had devoured. The other was crouched to the side of the doorway, as if debating with itself whether or not it should try to rush the door as its companion apparently had.
My runner went by them, wailing in fear.
I slid to a stop on the rapidly moistening floor, lifted the rod, and cut loose with another blast. It howled down the hallway, and the running vamp seized the wounded one and pulled it up to intercept the shot I’d meant for it. The wounded vamp screamed and absorbed just enough of the energy to let the runner plunge through the drywall at the end of the hall. It vanished from sight, and a second later I heard the sound of glass breaking as it fled the building.
The luckless vampire was dead, or on the final approach to it, since the beam had sliced off almost everything to the left of its spine. The final vampire whirled toward me, hesitating.
It proved fatal. The wall behind it suddenly exploded outward, and Martin, his skin livid with dark tattoos, came crashing through it. He drove the vampire across the hallway and slammed it into the wall. One hand snaked around the surprised vampire’s belly, and a knife gleamed. Scarlet gore fountained against the wall, and the vampire collapsed, screaming breathlessly.
Martin leapt clear before the thrashing creature got lucky with one of its claws, snapped his gaze up and down the hallway, saw the hole in the far wall, and said, “Damnation. You let one get away?”
Before I could answer him, Susan appeared, slipping out through the hole in the wall. She had the computer backpack slung over one shoulder and a smoking gun in her hand, a .45 automatic with an extended magazine. She took a look at the vampire on the ground and lifted the gun, her dark eyes hard and cold.
“Wait,” I said. “There were six. He’s number four.”
“There are always six of them,” Susan said. “Standard operations team.”
She calmly pulled the trigger, letting loose a short, precise burst of automatic fire, and blew the wounded vampire’s head into disgusting mulch.
Martin looked at his watch. “We don’t have long.”
Susan nodded and they both started down the hallway, toward the stairs. “Come on, Harry. We found floor plans. The building’s wired.”
I blinked and ran after them. “Wired? To what?”
“The explosives are on the fourth floor,” Martin said calmly, “placed all around your office.”
“Those jerks,” I said. “They told us they were cleaning out asbestos!”
Susan barked out a short laugh, but Martin frowned her down. “When that runner gets them word about what happened, they’ll set them off. I suggest we hurry.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed.
We sprinted for the stairs. Going down them took a lot less time than going up, but it was harder to control. I stumbled once and Susan caught me by the arm, her fingers like bands of rigid steel. We reached the bottom together.
“Not out the front!” I barked. “Inbound authorities!”
I pounded past them and led them down a short hallway and out a side door, into an alley. Then we sprinted to the back of the building, down another alley, and away.
We had made it to the next block when light flashed and a giant the size of the Sears building hauled off and swatted us all with a pillow from his enormous bed. We were flung from our feet. Susan and Martin landed in a roll, tumbling several times. By contrast, I crashed into a garbage can.
It was, of course, full.
I lay there for a moment, my ears putting out a constant, high-pitched tone. A cloud of dust and particles washed over me, mixing with whatever hideous stew was in the trash can and caking itself to my body.
“I am not playing at the top of my game,” I mused aloud. I felt the words buzz in my throat, but I couldn’t hear them.