The Last of the Red Hot Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,11

continue talking. If you wish to live, run!"

"Run?" Sarah asked, looking around.

Wordless voices swept past us, setting off my flight instinct. I didn't stop to analyze the situation, I just acted.

"Run!" I screamed, grabbing Sarah's arm and hauling her with me as I hurtled down the hill.

I felt the man's presence behind us as we raced down the hill, stumbling over occasional clumps of earth and rocks, but a long-buried, primal sense told me I had less to fear from him than whatever it was the wind heralded.

Sarah would have stopped by her rental car, but the man grabbed the back of my shirt and her dress, and pushed us on, toward a small shed that sat near a curve in the road. "Do not stop! Your car is within sight of the hill."

He half dragged us over a low stone wall, shoving us without any ceremony around the edge of the shed. I ran straight into the front bumper of a car, slamming onto the hood with a breath-stealing, "Ooof!"

"Get in," he ordered, opening both doors on the driver's side.

"Are you insane?" I snapped, limping over to where Sarah stood. "We are not going anywhere with you - "

I like to think of myself as reasonably able to take care of myself in dangerous situations, but the man in front of me was several inches taller than me, probably a good fifty pounds heavier, and evidently spent his spare time working out with weights, or throwing unwilling women into the backs of vehicles, because he had no difficulty in doing the latter. He tossed small, delicate Sarah into the car as if she weighed no more than a bag of grapefruit, flinging larger and more substantial me in on top of her before slamming the door behind us.

"Hey!" I yelled into Sarah's left hip.

"Oh my god, get off me. I think you're breaking my rib."

The car lurched forward as the potential murderer, now kidnapper, started the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

"I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice to be here," I grumbled, scrambling off Sarah and onto the car floor. I flailed around for a moment, but only ended up wedged in between the back and front seats. "Ow! That's my head you just kicked!"

"Sorry. Hey, you! This is kidnapping! International kidnapping! If you pull over right now and let us out, I won't get my husband, a renowned criminal lawyer, to sue your ass into a life sentence at the nearest penitentiary where you will spend the rest of your days as some burly axe murderer's girlfriend."

"Stay down or the Hashmallim will see you," was all that the kidnapper said.

"Hit him," I whispered furiously to Sarah where she crouched above me on the seat. I tried to pull myself out of my predicament, but there was nothing I could grab to give me leverage.

"What?"

"Hit him," I said again in a voice pitched low enough that just she could hear. "On the back of the head. Knock him out so we can escape."

Sarah looked wildly around the backseat of the car. "Knock him out with what? My camera bag? It has my digital camera in it!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, do I have to do everything...move aside so I can get out of this horrible deathtrap."

Sarah managed to move aside just enough for me to grasp the fabric of the car seat with both hands and heave myself out of the trench. The car swerved slightly as the kidnapper glared in the rearview mirror at us.

"I told you to keep down. The Hashmallim could still see you."

"You are kidnapping us," I told him, untangling my purse strap from my person. I didn't have much in it but my travel wallet and miscellaneous tourist items, but I had to do something to stop our abduction. Spending time trapped in a psycho's lair while he did who-knew-what to us was not on my vacation to-do list. "Stop the damned car and let us out!"

"What you're doing is illegal!" Sarah added, scooting over ever further as I hefted my bag.

"I answer to higher laws than yours," he muttered as he swung the car around a corner. Ahead of us, the town of Newton Poppleford hove into view.

"It's now or never," I whispered to Sarah. "We have to get out before he goes through the town. I'm going to bash him on the head with my bag while you open the door and throw yourself out. I'll jump out my side at