where she could watch what happened. That was a mistake, for the vampire sensed her there! And satisfied that there was no danger, he stood in the garden with his hands on his hips and sniffed Lissa out! She felt his hypnotic power in her mind, and knew that she'd been discovered.
'She tried to make a run for it, past the vampire Lord to the steps cut in the steep side of the knoll. But he got in her way and showed her the killing gauntlet on his hand. And closing with her, he said: "Where is your man? Where are your sons? Show me your daughters!" He caught her up by the hair -' (Lardis almost started to his feet)'- and then Jason was there!'
'Jason!' the word burst from Lardis's lips.
'He had come up from Settlement,' Misha was breathless, 'to discover this creature threatening his mother. Crying out his rage, without pause he hurled himself at the vampire. Distracted, the monster released Lissa, turned on Jason and struck at him with his gauntlet. Ducking the blow, Jason stabbed the other with his knife, whose silver blade glanced off the vampire's ribs, tore along his forearm and caught in his gauntlet, which Jason wrenched from his hand. And Jason's knife was red with the vampire's blood!'
'What then?' Lardis couldn't contain himself.
'Lissa saw your hatchet in a tree stump ...'
'My axe?' Lardis cut in again. 'No other axe like it in the world - and I left it in the garden? To the rain and the rust? Just see how lax I had become! Jazz Simmons gave me that axe; he brought it with him from the hell-lands, and for nine hundred sunups it kept its edge! But go on.'
'She worked the hatchet out of the stump,' Misha continued, 'and went to leap on the vampire Lord where he clutched his side and arm. He saw how keen was the weapon's edge, and knew that even in a woman's hands it could take his head. And both Lissa and Jason together, they were intent upon killing him! Well, perhaps he's a coward, this one -'
They all are!' Lardis cried.
'- But he fled before them, snatching up his bloodied gauntlet as he went. And as he got behind his flyer where it wallowed in the ruins of your cabin, Lissa heard him cry out: "Roll on them! Crush them!"
'The creature made to thrust itself upon them; they ran in different directions; Lissa was struck by the flyer's wing and knocked over the knoll's steepest rim! And... and that was the last she saw of Jason. Then: she fell through the brambles, bracken, saplings of the hillside, tumbling most of the way to the bottom. Her clothes were torn - you see how this blouse is stitched, here and here? - and so were her hands and arms, but not seriously. And when she came to rest, then she would climb to the top again!'
Lardis groaned and clutched his head. 'What a fool of a women I married,' he said. And then, with pride: 'But what a woman!'
'Hear me out,' Misha told him. 'She would have climbed back to the top - to be with her son and help him fight the vampire Lord - but missed her footing and went plunging the rest of the way to the bottom! Then, shocked out of her wits, half-stunned, she made for Settlement where she hoped to find you and tell you what had happened. But at the North Gate ... she saw the town was burning, saw what was loose and ravaging in its streets.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'Weak now and terrified, hoping to find a place to hide, Lissa went into the forest and skirted Settlement to the west. And that was where she bumped into Nana Kiklu. Nana had hidden in the woods after her house was wrecked, but when things had seemed to quiet down a little she'd gone back in through a gap in the stockade to look for her sons. Instead of finding them, she found me. And so I have Nana to thank for my life.
'She dragged me out of there and brought me round, and as I regained consciousness . .. that was when Lissa came stumbling and crying through the night. Nana calmed her, and then would have returned again into Settlement. But by then there were monsters everywhere. Their roaring, and all the screaming ... it was terrible. And Lissa and I, we couldn't