the arm. Once again, the master vampire collapsed on the roof.
“Finish the son-of-a-bitch!” Raspair ordered the flaxen haired-twins who turned their sights on Kaleb Sainvire.
By the looks of it, the day was a victory for Raspair’s people. They outnumbered Sainvire’s forces two to one. Gruman took to the air, thinking his work finished. He was now a spectator to a death match.
As soon as one of the shockingly ethereal vampires positioned close enough to plug a bullet in his skull, Sainvire elongated a thumbnail and impaled the woman. The brother fired a clumsy shot while retreating to the sky, but Sainvire was on his tail, having extracted the bullet from his stomach. The long mane of hair became the undoing of the vampire with a Seraphim’s face. Easily side-stepping the man’s scythe, Sainvire was presented with a fistful of hair. He 364
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yanked it back until the neck was exposed, and Sainvire sliced off the head.
“It would be simplest if you’d just expire, Sainvire,” Raspair sighed tiredly, cocking and firing his antiquated four-inch woman’s purse gun.
With a sudden glide to the left, Sainvire avoided the bullet now lodged in the metal rooftop. “I’m waiting for you to go first,” smiled Sainvire, flying.
“You’ve always asserted that guns are pedestrian, Gruman. With that gun in your hand, that makes you a hypocrite.”
Airborne, Raspair pulled his sword and slashed errantly at the much younger vampire. The councilman was clearly unnerved. It had been a few centuries since Gruman actually had had the chance to kill using a sword or his hands. Being Council Chairman did not require much skill, for his name alone intimidated all.
So when Sainvire went after Gruman Raspair, it was a shock to know how easily the top vampire of Los Angeles was felled. Like everything in the new world, older did not necessarily mean more power. Ed, the recently turned vampire, had more power in his little pinky than half of the Council.
Sainvire caught Raspair by the thin wisps of his hair and stabbed him in the throat, eyes, and in the heart. The easy kill was a letdown. He carried the corpse like a bride and paraded it where the fighting was heaviest.
When the Council loyalists saw that their leader was dead, these misguided vampires lost heart and turned tail.
(((
By five o’clock in the morning, the train reached its final destination somewhere in the California 365
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Central Valley. The journey would have been quicker, but the train had to stop sporadically to dispatch the cleaning crew to remove debris from the tracks. They also had to tediously disassemble tracks to avoid detection. Windows had to be tarped into darkness for the sun-allergic who took up a freight car of their own.
Despite what Sainvire’s people had endured, the hopeful colors of dusk lightened hearts somewhat. The fresh country air helped iron out the tensions and tiredness of the group. The comforting presence of gently smiling freed cattle that waited up for the newly arrived made the transition much easier.
The bone-weary humans, no longer anyone’s cattle, skittishly surrendered to the designs of calming ranch hands. Too many people and vampires had been dealt permanent deaths that night. Very few congratulated each other for a job well done. Turkeys, pigs, horses, goats, and cows – real cows – that wandered around the farm created just the distraction so desperately needed.
Perhaps the most amazing sight was the sleepy children rubbing their eyes at the nearly three hundred new arrivals. The children, still wearing their pajamas, woke up at the commotion and stepped outside. The sight brought lumps to many a throat.
Poe could see her breath and hear the animals cooing and clucking to each other. The smell was indescribably perfect. Grassy with a hint of manure.
“Look at the lady. She’s got blood all over,” said a tyke, one of the many kids who had formed a circle around her.
“And look at her face,” said another, pointing to her scar.
A woman in a homemade sweater took one look at Poe and quickly shooed the children away. “Kids, don’t go near.”
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Perhaps it was her youth and the violence of her appearance. Maybe her scar was to blame or the swollen bruises on her face, but Poe did not get the warm reception cattle and other fighters received. It dawned on her that aside from her old partners, people, vamps, and children avoided her company altogether.
After everything she’d been through, the lack of courtesy didn’t sit right. Sleepy children were instructed