Everyone Dies in the End #92
Author Talking
Zak
He had never seen anything like this woman, and that—after the last few
days—was saying quite a lot. She was a blur in khakis and T-shirt, innocuously
dressed, lethally efficient. He paused for a moment as the guards’ return fire
smacked into the pew in front of him, splintering the back. He slid a few feet
on his back, a guard screamed, and Zak popped from behind the pew to fire.
Pop, pop. The shots were not from Zak, Katarina stood in the aisle, a guard dead
at her feet, another slumping, smoke oozing from a hole in his forehead.
Another pair, sprayed Katarina with bullets, but Katarina was no longer there,
she raced down the left side of the church. Zak replied to the assault rifles
with a burst from the submachine gun. The rounds chipped the marble altar, but
did little except draw the men’s attention. Attention that was quickly followed
by a hail of bullets. He ducked, but before his eyes dipped below the edge of the
pew he saw a woman, a beautiful dark-skinned woman, dash onto the altar from
the right, a scimitar flashing in her hand. A
freaking scimitar?
Dusty
“Come on!” Eddie shouted, grabbing
her wrist and pulling her after him. The church sounded as if someone was setting
off a well-funded fireworks display on the altar.
Eddie sprinted through the room
where the black woman had butchered the vampire. The room was vacant now, the
corpse gone. The blood, however, still stained the carpet and the coppery smell
hung in the air. He slowed at the entrance to the hall leading to the stage.
Turning, he placed his finger to his lips, and then smiled.
God,
what am I doing? Dusty screamed to herself. This man is a beast, a murderer, a torturer, she remembered the
woman on the stage, and a sadist. She
was sickened, but she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. The image of the
tortured woman excited her. He was a beast, but he was also strong, powerful,
and alive, so very alive. She despised him, yet he excited her like no man before.
He crept to the door, and a long
string of firecrackers exploded in the church. Only they weren’t firecrackers.
She knew that, had been around enough killing to know the sound that death
made.
“Let’s go,” he hissed, gesturing
for her to follow. Crouching he ran onto the altar, and Dusty followed suite.
Through the door, three things caught her attention. Two men crouched, wildly
firing their assault rifles, on the other side of the altar, the black woman dashed
from a doorway, brandishing her scimitar. But the third thing drew a yell from
Eddie.
A woman clad in khaki pants and a
t-shirt sprinted across the church. Sprinted fast, incredibly fast, and not
along the expansive center aisle, or between the pews. The woman ran across the
top of the pews, her foot lighting for a millisecond on the back of each before
moving to the next. Dusty knew only one thing with that speed, that agility,
and the knowing raised the hair on the back of her neck. As she watched, the
vampire swung her shotgun and fired point blank into the chest of one of
Eddie’s henchmen, without breaking
stride.
Eddie fired, but he might as well
have shot at a ghost. The rounds from his pistol ripped into a pew meters
behind the speeding vampire.
“Go,” Mbande shouted from across
this stage. “The vampire is mine.”
Eddie fired again, again the shot
missed by a wide margin. The men behind the altar added their lead to the
party, one’s rounds striking in front of the speeding woman; the other’s
chipping holes in the wooden wall at the back of the church. Dusty’s eyes
followed the rounds. She thought she saw the top of a head behind the rear pew,
but couldn’t be sure.
Eddie’s pistol boomed and then went
silent. “Shit, no ammo.”
“Dusty!” He grabbed her wrist.
“Come on, we gotta go. I know what she wants.”
She bristled. She wasn’t the same
girl Eddie bossed about the bedroom, draped on his arm as a trophy, or used as
a verbal punching bag. Nuclear missiles, vampires, and gun battles had changed
all that. Emotions crashed like waves against the shore of her self-image. She
could blink, she could leave. Right now. She didn’t want a domineering man,
maybe, but his kiss lingered on his lips, and his power, that sexy power, in
her heart.
She
went.
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