Poe upwards until she almost believed she was a rocket blasting to the moon.
While Poe began her descent to earth, Sainvire busied himself by grabbing pudgy hombre’s oily hair and cleanly severing his head with his talons. The other vamp with crooked teeth attempted to fly away but was too slow for Sainvire who skewered his heart Benihana-style. He finished just in time to catch Poe’s fall and land her softly on top of a jeep Cherokee.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his incisors looking menacing.
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“Uh huh,” answered Poe, breathless and fearful of the vampire.
“Get your Glocks ready. There’re still more of them out there.” When the girl didn’t answer, he said,
“I can’t babysit, Poe. You’ve got to pull your weight.”
At this, Poe’s nostrils flared, insulted. “I always pull my weight,” she said, pushing him away.
Unsheathing her Glocks, she jumped down the hood of the jeep onto the street. She ran to where Maple was busy bashing heads with her spiky forearms.
“Pull my weight, huh?” she muttered. She turned loose to ease Maple’s burdens by shooting six vampires in the head before they even knew what was happening.
“Poe, watch out for the speedy ones. There are two of them,” warned Maple. And just like a portent, one appeared to slam Maple against an ancient palm tree and again at the hood of a car like she was a mannequin.
The girl inhaled and aimed. “Help me, someone,”
she whispered. The voice in her head said, now, and Poe fired. The dead twitched on the ground by Maple’s feet.
Before she could crack a smile, the wind was knocked out of her. Someone, too quick to identify, tackled her and was about to slam her. Even though she could not see Speedy Gonzalez hugging her at the waist, Poe pointed her gun at what she thought was its back and fired. She crashed painfully to the ground with a raging female vamp on top of her. The creature writhed in pain, screaming, “I’m going to kill you, bitch!”
Poe didn’t want to hear it and aimed her .357
Glock at her blonde head and pulled the trigger. She walked a quarter of a mile back to where she’d left Maple. The fighting was over.
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“You okay, Maple?”
“Yes.” The vampire smiled reassuringly. “What about you? You look like you’ve been shot in the head.”
“I was. By rocks.”
They waited for Sainvire. When he flew above them and landed on his feet, his face was a scowl. At least his fangs had shrunk back to their manageable size. He told them to continue back to the library. He was going to fly up and watch for any more of Trench’s people from the air. Then he was gone, swallowed up by the night.
(((
Every single part of her body ached – even down to her hair follicles. She burned with a fever and could barely swallow the delicious barley soup Janice had made. Her head and ear hurt so bad that even a smidge of light gave her a tremendous migraine. However, Maple insisted that one oil lamp stay lit in case she needed to go to the bathroom. One more trip or fall would have done her in. The single comfort she had was the opportunity to sleep in Sainvire’s soft bed again. She knew her occupation of the room would have to end, but since she was sick, Perla assuredly said that she could stay another night.
After a shower, Poe inspected the rock-inflicted wounds and winced. “I look like a demon trying to sprout horns,” she said about the discolored bumps on her temple. Her left ear was stitched, as the lower earlobe had been hanging by a thread of skin.
“No peridot earrings for me, thanks,” she told herself out loud.
Her naked torso bore silver dollar-size welts that were already turning blue. Without bothering to dry her 185
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hair, Poe slid under the sheets, wearing one of Sainvire’s black t-shirts and Perla’s voluminous pajama bottoms. Penny the dog was asleep on the divan, probably knocked out by painkillers. Lucky dog.
She wished somebody had given her something to kill the pain. Her sleep was brief before she felt a presence in the dark. The sole oil lamp that lit the room revealed Sainvire. Instinctively, Poe did not move, keeping her lids half open.
The vampire glided to the bathroom to minimize noise and gently shut the door behind him. Poe heard the shower running. Her heart thumped criminally. She didn’t see Sainvire go in with fresh clothes