Thirst No. 3 (7 page)

A break at last! My foe has overlooked this vault. I take out a couple of .45 semiautomatic Glocks and stuff them in my belt, along with three throwing knives. But my eyes feast on the one Barringer sniper rifle I have left. It has a powerful sighting scope that’s equipped with a laser, which works well with my superhuman vision.

I grab as many clips of armor-piercing bullets as I can carry, a dozen. Since each clip holds twenty rounds, I figure I’ll have 240 chances to kill my foe.

He must suspect I’m no longer upstairs, because he suddenly shifts his Gatling gun to the living room. Once more, I’m fortunate my ears are able to anticipate his change in attack. Before the bullets even strike the living room, I shove a sofa and china cabinet against the wall to give me a brief umbrella of cover. Then I retreat back to the garage, essentially putting the house between me and him.

I have to go on the offensive. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a vampire, because chances are he’s a vampire.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. No human being should have been able to hit me when I ran from the car to the house. Sure, it could have been a lucky shot, but what are the odds of that? Just the fact he was able to drag a Gatling gun into the woods indicates how strong he is. The weapon weighs a ton. No, he has to be a vampire.

But who made him? Yaksha would never have done so. He would never have disobeyed his vow to Krishna. And as for Eddie Fender—who for a time had access to Yaksha’s blood—I destroyed him years ago. The only source of vampire blood that seems remotely possible is the U.S. Army.

Joel Drake—an FBI agent I’d changed into a vampire—was the unwilling guest at a secret government facility outside Las Vegas. It’s true I wiped the damn place off the face of the earth with an H-bomb, but it was always possible the general in charge of the camp had shipped vials of Joel’s blood to the Pentagon before I exploded the bomb. Certainly the government connection would help explain where the vampire in the woods had obtained a Gatling gun.

Still, I have my doubts. I even have doubts about climbing on the roof, which would give me my best shot at the guy. My reasoning is simple—he will expect me to go up on the roof. If I fail to take him down with a single shot, he can casually spray the roof with his Gatling and splatter my guts over the grass, all the way down to the lake.

No, I must outwit him. I have to do the unexpected. I’m a
sitting duck as long as I’m stuck in the house and he has plenty of ammunition for his supergun. I have to get to the woods, that will even the odds. I assume I know the area better than he does—after all, I live here. If I can reach the trees, I might even swing the odds in my favor.

True, my leg’s healing at a phenomenal rate, but I’m still crippled. I’ll need at least a minute to reach the trees, and he’ll spot me long before that. Unless . . . what? Can I create a diversion of some type?

A minute of frantic concentration gives me a plan.

Stage one—I have to transform my house into a big firecracker. I have materials that can do the trick: natural gas, a propane tank, the gasoline in the cars parked in my garage. But the key, the trigger, will be the propane tank. Unfortunately, I know enough about the gas to know it won’t explode—like such tanks always do on TV—simply by hitting it with a bullet. My trigger will need a trigger.

The powder in my sniper bullets is not ordinary gunpowder. It’s been soaked in nitroglycerin—that’s what causes the bullets to fire at such a high velocity. Working quietly, I unload two clips of bullets and spread them on an oil rag on the concrete floor. My hands are strong—I’m able to pull the caps off forty rounds without effort. Once I have a pile of powder available, I tie it into a ball and soak it with oil so it will stick to the side of the propane tank that stands outside my garage.

Next, I creep into the kitchen and turn on all the gas
burners in my stove and oven. But I kill the pilot light, so the smell of gas begins to fill the room. At the same time I listen to what my assailant is up to. It sounds like he’s using the pause to reload his guns. He probably figures that I’m dead meat—that it’s only a question of time.

Back in the garage, I siphon off the bulk of the gasoline in the tanks of my cars into empty Sparkletts water bottles. The bottles hold five gallons each—I have only four. But I have over a hundred gallons of gasoline at my disposal, so I have to make several trips, back and forth, to spread the gasoline all over my house.

However, I leave each car with at least a gallon in its tank.

The cars are the trickiest part of my plan. When the time is right, I plan to launch them away from my house at different speeds and directions. They are a major part of the diversion I’m trying to create. I use rope and a complex combination of knots to rig the steering wheels to the gas pedals. I’m not worried my Porsche will block the way of the escaping cars. Just before I jumped from it, the Porsche veered to the right of the garage door.

Ah, the garage door—it is almost time to open it. Unfortunately, I have to launch the cars as soon as I open it or else he’ll just blow the vehicles up inside the garage. For that reason, I start all six of the cars before I open the door. It’s a delicate balancing act. The cars are in gear and ready to go. It’s only the closed door and the cramped space that keep them in place.

Once more, I stop and listen to what my opponent is up to. He appears to be doing likewise. He must have supernatural hearing to know I’ve started the cars, more proof that he is a vampire.

I stuff what clips I have left into my coat pockets and swing my sniper rifle over my shoulder. At last, I’m ready to make my dash for the woods. I have no idea what my odds are, but I like the many layers in my plan—the levels of deception. If I do die tonight, after walking the earth for almost two million nights, then no one can accuse me of not putting up a good fight.

I push a button and the main garage door opens. The cars take off like hungry rabbits, all in different directions. I’ve rigged each steering wheel separately. Some are pulled to the right, others to the left, some to the far right, and so on. Watching them race away, I’d swear they were driven by six different drunks.

I run out the side door, near where my blood covers the floor. My assailant immediately begins to fire on the cars, using his Gatling gun. He can’t see me leaving the house, not yet, because I’m still in its shadow. The steep outline of the roof protects me, and I know I’ll remain invisible until I reach a small rise three hundred yards away. Yet that’s only a third of the way to the trees, and I know he won’t take long to slay all six cars and realize they were nothing but a ruse.

Yet, for the moment, he seems quite happy to blast away at my vintage models. A glance over my shoulder shows me the mess he’s
making of my Mercedes. The black sedan finally explodes when he hits the gasoline tank, and I watch as he shifts his aim onto my Ford Expedition that I use to haul supplies in. For now, he is pretty confident I’m in one of the vehicles.

My limp is clumsy, but I can still run twice as fast as most people. I’m fortunate to reach the low rise on the ground just as his supergun falls silent. Another five feet and the house will no longer shield me. Plus he has finished with the cars. The six burn like smoldering tanks on a lost battlefield. He has not been fooled. I can feel him scanning the area. He knows I’m not dead.

I drop to one knee and take aim at the propane tank, specifically at the wad of gunpowder I have attached to it. By now, a choking cloud of natural gas has filled the house and mingled with the fumes of the hundreds of gallons of gasoline I have soaked into the floor and the furniture. My firecracker is ready—I have only to light the fuse.

I put my laser scope on the oily ball and fire.

One shot, that’s all I need.

The house explodes in a red and orange mushroom cloud.

I turn and run toward the trees.

The size and glare of the exploding cloud gives me further cover. But my foe has already guessed what I’m using it for, and he rakes his bullets through the smoke and fire. He can’t see me, not yet, but he can guess where I am and where I’m going. For that reason I don’t make a beeline for the woods. Instead,
I veer slightly to the left, taking a path that’s longer but hopefully safer. Almost instantly I have confirmation of the wisdom of my course. Off to my right, the ground erupts as the Gatling gun seeks my flesh.

I feel the anger in my foe. Feel it in the way he fires.

He knows he has been tricked, and he does not like it.

I almost make it. Once more, he may have gotten off another lucky shot, or else my bright mushroom cloud burned too fast and left me exposed. I suppose it doesn’t really matter how he’s able to hit me. All I know is that when the bullet slices through my right side, through my liver, I’m in serious trouble.

Like normal people, the worst place for me to get shot is in the head or the heart. I’m not sure if I could withstand such a blow. A bullet through the liver is almost as bad. The reason is the large number of arteries and veins in the organ. The blow to my thigh has caused me to lose a lot of blood. But this hole in my liver has turned me into a red geyser. I’m just entering the woods when I’m hit. It’s all I can do to run another twenty yards and collapse behind a thick tree.

The pain is worse than before. I feel burning, like the leg wound, but also an immense amount of pressure. I struggle to remain conscious. I know I must slow the bleeding, but it’s hard to move. Eventually, I manage to wiggle out of my leather coat and tie the arms over the hole. But the wound is on both sides, the front and the back, and I know his bullet has torn at least one major artery. It makes me sick to think of how
scrambled my insides are, and I realize I cannot count on my body’s ability to heal itself.

Pulling my coat slightly down, I reach up and stick my fingers directly into the hole. I want to be sick, but I fear if I vomit, I’ll throw up a piece of something that I need. My fingers are not steady; they shake as they probe for the lacerated artery.

But eventually I find it and pinch it shut on both ends with the tips of my nails. Almost immediately the massive blood loss stops. I keep telling myself, if I can just stay alive a few minutes, I might be able to heal enough to where the shredded ends of the artery mend.

I’m doing surgery on myself. With my fingernails as scalpels.

God, how I wish I could black out and wake up in a hospital.

Sitting against the red-smeared tree, I concentrate on three things. First, I have to keep my fingers steady. I literally will them to stop trembling. Next, I focus on my breath. Long, deep breaths are best. They slow down my metabolism. Finally, I listen for my opponent. He probably knows he hit me; he may even be able to follow the trail of my blood to this very tree. Yet I’m deep enough in the woods to prevent him from using the Gatling on me. He would just waste his ammunition tearing apart trees.

I’m not surprised to hear him come to the same conclusion.

I know because I hear him begin to hike toward me.

He’s cautious, this guy. He doesn’t consider hiking across the open field to reach me. He knows if I’m still alive I can shoot him dead from a mile away. No, he stays in the trees, in the shadows, steadily circling around the field and my burning house.

My place continues to blaze like an insane asylum’s bonfire. The townsfolk probably didn’t hear his guns, but I’m sure somebody must have heard the house explode. We’ll probably have company soon in the form of police and firemen. I don’t know if I should root for them to hurry. Chances are my foe will kill them the second they arrive.

He’s halfway to my position when I feel the two ends of my torn artery finally fuse together. It may sound gross, but it’s a delightful feeling, because it tells me I will live. At least until he shoots me again. I’m grateful to be able to take my fingers out of my liver and tighten my coat sleeves back over the wound.

With my liver healing, I’m able to sit up and listen more closely to his movements. I note how often he stops to listen, how unsure his step is. I still believe he’s a vampire, but I know already my hearing is superior to his. I can hear his breathing, his heartbeat. Yet at best I think he has only a vague idea of my location.

My big ears don’t make me cocky. I’m still seriously injured, and if we end up fighting hand to hand, he’ll probably win. The fact he’s coming after me means he’s confident he can finish me off. Once more, I feel my best hope is to do the unexpected.

I decide to climb a tree.

With my side leaking and my thigh burning, it’s the last
thing I want to do. Also, once I’m up in a tree, if I fail to kill him or seriously injure him with my first shot, then I’m doomed. But my gut tells me to take the chance, and I have learned to trust my gut, even when it has a hole in it.

Quietly, oh so gently, I slip off my boots and use my sniper rifle to prop me up. I can’t climb the tree I’m leaning against—it stinks of blood. But I can’t go far, I’m weak and nauseous. Besides, the more I move, the greater the chance he’ll hear me. Yet I deliberately head deeper into the woods, which will directly place me in the path he’s following. I soon find an old fern that looks promising.

I wrap the strap of my rifle around the barrel and bite down hard on it so there’s no chance the weapon will sway and bump a branch as I climb. Holding the gun this way keeps my arms free. I’m lucky my hands and feet are unharmed. I’m able to scamper up the tree fairly quickly. It’s the tallest tree in the area, and I don’t stop until I’m two hundred feet above the floor of the forest. I snuggle inside a handful of tightly placed branches, hoping the raw wood will offer some protection. Because I assume he has infrared equipment, I use the damp leaves to smear my bare skin with as much liquid as possible, trying to reduce my heat signature. I concentrate on my head; it gives off the most heat.

My view of the woods is vast, but I cannot see my opponent, not even using the infrared feature on the rifle’s scope. Still, I can hear him approach, and I notice he’s veered in the direction of my previous position. My blood, I think, he must smell my blood.
That’s good—he’s heading toward a spot I have a clear shot at.