some fiend bolt at him slavering from out of the dark while he was looking down...
No. He couldn't move.
He was frozen, staring wildly into the darkness, gasping dry-mouthed and waiting to die.
Then BEEP... and Felix jumped a foot in the air before he remembered it was the vampire detector Joplin had given them to take inside. The others had bells on them but Joplin had converted this one to have one of those smug little electronic BEEPS.
"Cat!" growled Crow harshly in Felix's headset. "Turn that down."
"Right, bwana" was the calm reply and in the corner of one eye Felix saw the blond silhouette in the right-side lantern bend to work the controls.
"More, dammit!" snarled Crow.
"'More' it is," replied Cat in the same tone. Beep... Beep... Beep...
"How's that?" asked Cat.
"It's okay," said Crow.
Beep... Beep... Beep... Felix hated it.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Felix hated it because he knew what it meant.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The faster it beeped the closer came those.
Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep
"Okay, sports fans," whispered Cat, peering into the darkness directly in front of him, "here we go."
She was fresh from the grave and slivers of skin peeled and curled at the corners of eyes glowing a red so bloody and deep they seemed almost black. Not yet a full vampire, but no longer a corpse - and totally unaware of self. She was no longer a she either, Felix knew. She was just a thirst-thing and he could by God feel her smelling the blood pulsing in their veins. And she came at them, came at them and it seemed she moved so damned fast though he knew it was just a lurching, dragging, walk.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Cat," ordered Jack calmly, stepping in front of her and raising his crossbow, "shut that damned thing off."
"Yes, bwana," replied Cat serenely and in a moment all was quiet.
Except for the sound of the creature dragging itself on grave-rotted feet toward Jack.
And then the deep THONG of the crossbow and the awful punching crunch as the massive arrow split the woman's chest cavity and cracked out her back.
The impact drove her backward several feet, arms flung outstretched, but somehow she remained upright.
Felix stared in horror. My God! The damn thing splitting her is as big as she is and it didn't even knock her down!
And for just an instant some deep adult in him was outraged, offended at such defiance. And he saw himself drawing and firing and plunging silver bullets into her throat - But he couldn't move. He was gone. He couldn't handle this.
He just stood and stared and trembled as the woman thirst-thing reacted to the agony of impalement with maniacal frenzy, her eyes bugging, her mouth barking shrieks and howls, her vile matted hair whipping thin cuts into her moldering cheeks. Something oozed thickly from the wound. But even in the uncertain light Felix could tell it wasn't blood. The only blood came from the red flecks that spat forth from the howling, crumpled mouth.
"Hit it, Carl," ordered Jack into his radio headset.
The cable attached to the arrow went instantly taut. The woman, still howling and warping in pain, fell forward onto the dusty cement as the cable began to drag her writhing toward the exit. She didn't want to go. She fought the shaft of the huge arrow, she scratched sparks on the concrete floor. She howled and spat some more. But she went.
"Adam," chided Crow gently, "you want to get the door now?"
The young priest unfroze himself from the sight, nodded, and all but tripped over himself in his hurry to obey.
She went to something beyond hideous when the sunlight struck her. Felix had never heard anything like those screams, had never seen anything like that blurred, vibrating frenzy.
And that fire, those bursting flames that erupted from deep inside her skin as if they were being blown outward by some fierce vindicatory pressure. The flames didn't look real. They looked like dozens of tiny acetylene torches rocketing out of her.
The cable was relentless as it dragged her through the double doors of the building, across the sidewalk, and into the street. Felix hadn't realized he was following her until he saw the others closing in to stare.
They were all there. The cops. The local powers. That mayor, Tammy Something, was there. They had left their police barricades and their whispering cliques and everything else and rushed forward to stare.
The screams abruptly ceased, so suddenly it made every-one jump. And then the flame itself began to shrink, as