matter how dreary the day.
The last bit of chain slid to the floor.
"You have to stand up," I said in Bill's ear. "You just have to. I know it hurts. But I can't carry you." At least, I didn't think I could. "There's a big Lincoln outside, and the trunk is open. I'm putting you in the trunk, wrapped in this blanket, and we're driving out of here. Understand, babe?"
Bill's dark head moved a fraction of an inch.
Right then our luck ran out.
"Who the hell are you?" asked a heavily accented voice. Someone had come through the door at my back
Bill flinched under my hands. I whirled to face her, dipping to pick up the stake as I did so, and then she was on me.
I had talked myself into believing they were all in their coffins for the day, but this one was doing her best to kill me.
I would have been dead in a minute if she hadn't been as shocked as I was. I twisted my arm from her grasp and pivoted around Bill in his chair. Her fangs were all out, and she was snarling at me over Bill's head. She was a blond, like me, but her eyes were brown and her build was smaller; she was a tiny woman. She had dried blood on her hands, and I knew it was Bill's. A flame started up inside me. I could feel it flicker through my eyes.
"You must be his little human bitch whore," she said. "He was fucking me, all this time, you understand. The minute he saw me, he forgot about you, except for pity."
Well, Lorena wasn't elegant, but she knew where to sink the verbal knife. I batted the words aside, because she wanted to distract me. I shifted my grip on the stake to be ready, and she leaped across Bill to land on top of me.
As she moved, without a conscious decision I whipped up the stake and pointed it at an angle. As she came down on me, the sharp point went in her chest and out the other side. Then we were on the floor. I was still gripping the end of the stake, and she was holding herself off of me with her arms. She looked down at the wood in her chest, astonished. Then she looked in my eyes, her mouth agape, her fangs retracting. "No," she said. Her eyes went dull.
I used the stake to push her to my left side, and I scrambled up off the floor. I was panting, and my hands shook violently. She didn't move. The whole incident had been so swift and so quiet that it hardly felt real.
Bill's eyes went from the thing on the floor to me. His expression was unreadable. "Well," I told him, "I killed her ass."
Then I was on my knees beside her, trying not to vomit.
It took me more precious seconds to regain control of myself. I had a goal I had to meet. Her death would not do me a bit of good if I couldn't get Bill out of here before someone else came in. Since I had done something so horrible, I had to get something, some advantage out of it.
It would be a smart thing to conceal the body - which was beginning to shrivel - but that had to take second place to removing Bill. I wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as he sat slumped in the stained chair. I'd been afraid to look at his face since I'd done this thing.
"That was Lorena?" I whispered in Bill's ear, plagued by a sudden doubt. "She did this to you?"
He gave that tiny nod again.
Ding dong, the witch was dead.
After a pause, while I waited to feel something, the only thing I could think of was asking Bill why someone named Lorena would have a foreign accent. That was dumb, so I forgot about it.
"You got to wake up. You got to stay awake till I get you in the car, Bill." I was trying to keep a mental eye open for the Weres in the next room. One of them began snoring behind the closed door, and I felt the mental stir of another, one I hadn't been able to spot. I froze for several seconds, before I could feel that mind settle into a sleep pattern again. I took a deep, deep breath and pulled a flap of blanket over Bill's head. Then I got his left