Part 37 (2/2)

A fierce vampire roared, breaking off a leg from one of the bar stools, then racing toward Brent who let the man reach him, then snaked out an arm like steel, catching the chair leg and sending the burly vampire cras.h.i.+ng into the fire that burned in the remains of the great hearth. ”Sorry, not a vampire,” Brent muttered.

”Get down!” Rick shouted to him.

Brent ducked. A silver bullet whistled overhead and exploded into the stone wall. Brent rose, surprised. A hatchet went flying, cras.h.i.+ng directly into the neck and shoulder of the man with the pistol with the silver bullets. He went down.

”Thanks,” Brent called to Ragnor.

”Don't mention it.”

”Brent, Rick,” Lucien called, ”one of you finish in here, one of you get on the trail. Make sure none of the victims are followed.”

”Right,” Brent acknowledged.

”Hurry it up in here,” Lucien told Ragnor. ”I have a bad feeling about what's going on downstairs.”

Ragnor glanced around quickly. No more vampires were in evidence. ”I think we're just finished in here,” he said.

”Then let's get below,” Lucien said grimly.

This was so much like it had been before, except that this time he had seen her there, fighting. She was still alive. He was determined to live, too.

Bryan stepped forward with long strides, his senses so finely honed that he seemed to know the move of his every opponent. He ducked, spun, leapt and struck back with such speed and fury that it was as if he couldn't miss. Every enemy had to be sliced in half, beheaded or pinned through the heart or brain. Slashed to ribbons, they might still come back. Of course, if they were disabled enough, he could always finish them off later.

His arms were tiring, his muscles burning like molten steel, he didn't care. Then he heard her scream.

”b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” he raged. He kicked the vampire in front of him, then staked him dead center in the heart. He fought his way through the crowd, slas.h.i.+ng indiscriminately.

And then, just when it seemed they were about to descend on him again in impossible numbers, they began to fall away instead.

He had a brief glimpse of Ragnor, fighting two-handed, with both sword and ax. Behind him, Lucien, using double-edged swords, as he was himself.

”Go!” he heard Lucien shout to him. ”Get her back!”

He burst through the battle lines, staring from side to side. He gritted his teeth, allowing his senses to guide him. The tunnel to the south...

He turned and ran.

Jessica had no idea how long he dragged her through the catacombs before they suddenly burst out into the night.

Beneath the Demon Moon.

There he threw her viciously across the ground.

She rose and realized she was standing exactly where she had stood hundreds of years before, the night bathed in the bloodred light of the moon.

And the creature staring at her, features contorted with a rage that seemed older than time, was lit with that crimson tint, as well.

She scrambled to her feet. She had lost the sword she had acquired. Now she had nothing. Nothing but her wits.

He lunged at her, his own blade so honed it seemed to drip blood, but it was only the reflection of the moon. She willed herself to become mist, and he slashed at nothing.

She materialized behind him.

He turned. ”Clever girl. Too bad your father was a traitor,” he sneered.

”My father was a man of his people, a great king.”

”He was quick enough to watch you die,” the Master said, the words barbed. ”But then, you were just a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child.”

”My father is dead and gone, and history has proved his worth,” she said.

He stood still, staring at her, then smiled mockingly. ”You have nothing. No weapon. How many times can you transform yourself before exhaustion overtakes you? Eventually, I will reach you. I will slice your flesh again and again. And when you are in such pain that you can no longer abide it, I will create a funeral pyre upon which you will burn. Unless...”

”Unless...?”

”You turn on him,” the Master said softly. ”What?”

”He became a warrior,” the Master said, and spat on the ground. ”Warriors kill vampires. You are a vampire, you stupid girl. Do you think he can ever forget that? He's been fooling himself, glad to sleep with you again, but do you think he can love you again?

He has used you to get to me, but one day, when you are sighing in his arms like the foolish strumpet you are, he will stake you straight through the heart. You can't change what you are, so choose to help me-and survive.”

She stared back at him and smiled, amazed that there was only one tiny pulse of fear within her, before she told him, ”You are as insane as you have always been. You think I'm your creation, but I'm not. Yes, you changed my form, but you didn't change what lies beneath. And I would die a thousand deaths before I would turn on him.”

She watched his face contort again. It looked mottled, hideous, as if it were composed of bursting veins, red and black. He started toward her; she leapt aside. He swung; she became mist. She meant to disappear, flee, until she found a weapon, but he reached into the mist and somehow she was a woman again, and his fingers curled around her arm. ”You have only one more life to give for him,” he spat out. ”And you will give it now.”

Bryan burst out from the tunnel, instantly aware of the moon, the terrain, the exact location where he stood.

And there, exactly where, once before, he had tortured and taunted Igrainia, was the Master.

He was surrounded by mist, but then the mist became real. Jessica. Igrainia. The sweep of her hair was like a wave around her, golden against the white fur of her cloak, a s.h.i.+ning sweep of all that was angelic. The Master had her in his grasp, but she was twisting, fighting, ever the fierce, proud spirit with whom he had fallen in love.

He let out a cry of rage that seemed to shake the very heavens.

The Master turned to him. His enemy in life and death. With a violent motion, the Master cast Jessica from him, then stared at Bryan.

”You and me, then. The final battle,” the Master said.

”The final battle,” Bryan agreed.

They circled each other warily. ”But will you fight?” taunted the Master. ”Think of those scores of vampires, my enemy, my minions, who get to live. Even as we fight, all those little innocent lambs who came here for a taste of the forbidden are running in an insanity of fear, desperate to escape. How many will die tonight, as you fight me?”

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