Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (26 page)

Quickly she kicked at the howling vampire’s shin and buried a wrist knife in his neck. The shorter vampire, not expecting retaliation from such a small 233

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person, was taken aback to Poe’s advantage. Before he could extract a menacing 9mm Tanfoglio Force from his hip holster, Poe beat him to the draw. Two shots squarely in the face felled him to the ground next to his writhing buddy. Poe removed her knife from the tall vampire’s throat and resheathed it at her wrist. With her foot she felt for the body armor on his person. The only safe place to aim for was the face.

“Nobody kicks my dog!” she gritted. “C’mon, Pen.”

She looked around the farm for another intruder.

“There’s nothing like violence to stop a girl’s tears,” she pronounced angrily and picked up the Tanfoglio packing 16 rounds. “They’re here!” she shouted as loudly as she could. She wiped the snot dripping from her face with her sleeve. “The motherfuckers are here!”

She plopped on her helmet and ran to the helicopter she could hear revving.
At least the
propellers are turning
, thought Poe.

“Get inside! They’re here!” Poe hollered over the din of the engine and propellers. The dent-studded helicopter, formerly used as a Medevac, looked like rock monsters had chewed and spit it out.

“Whoa there, Sharren,” Maclemar said as he wiped his oily hands on his jeans. “This thing won’t hover. The engine is running too lean. It loses compression after just a few feet in the air.”

“Shit. There’s no time for that. What can you do?”

“We think it’s the piston. It’s burnt around the edges,” he said. He climbed the second ladder to join a harried Rufus. “We’re replacing it now, so keep the enemy from shooting at this baby.”

“Where’s Michelle?”

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“Up that tree yonder,” said Ed, the smallest of Sainvire’s fighters. He appeared from behind and startled Poe. He tossed semi-automatics and ArmaLites on the ground. “I killed six scouts just now.”

“Can I have one of these ArmaLite things?”

“Help yourself, Poe,” the man said. He added, “I recommend the barn roof if you’re going to spot us.

I’ll take the rear.”

“Right,” said Poe, shouldering a long-range semi-automatic rifle and climbing the gutter to the roof. “Stay there, Pen. I’ll get you once this is over.”

The dog’s eyes apprehensively followed her ascent to the roof. Once settled on a spot Poe organized her weapons by size. Then she waited.

She noticed movement by the trailers. She blinked several times until she was certain at what she was seeing. “It’s Maple carrying Perla,” she said aloud. “I thought they would’ve left by now. And two jerkweeds are right at her heels.”

She took off her helmet and put the rifle in front of her. With relief she found night scopes attached to the firearm. Bad elements began firing in the rear, catching Maple in the back.
Good thing she’s immune
to garlic bullets
.

“C’mon, focus,” she urged herself and followed the little green people. She fired, taking one of them down. The second green blur ducked behind a tree.

The respite gave Maple a fighting chance to reach the back of the barn. Never taking her sight off the figure behind the tree, Poe waited patiently. The moment he peeked out, she squeezed the trigger. She hit the invader in the face.

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“The head’s the only target,” she repeated with conviction. A tad louder she asked behind her shoulder, “You okay, Maple?”

“Yes. So is Perla. Thanks to you,” answered the middle-aged vampire with bludgeon arms. She tucked a drug-induced Perla into the rear of the helicopter. “Is this the only firepower we’ve got left?” she asked Ed.

“’Fraid so,” he answered.

“How’s it going, Maclemar?” asked Maple who kneeled on the ground to pick up some weapons. The vest she was wearing had deflected the bullets.

“Alright. So far. I think the new piston will get this flying machine off the ground,” he answered.

“Better grab your eight on board.”

Rufus, silent all this time, spoke as he climbed down the ladder. He scratched at his missing ear and said, “Everyone’s here except for Prentis, Joseph, Sainvire, and the woman.”

“Her name’s Megan, Rufus. You best remember that,” Maple chided, squinting at his oil covered face and filthy overalls.

“Sorry. Megan.”

The smell of kerosene blanketed the air. A flash of light followed.

“The house is on fire!” Michelle yelled from up the mustard tree.

Before Poe could scramble off the roof to pull the occupants to safety, the sight of a solitary figure watching the blaze stopped her. It was Joseph.

“He lit the fire,” Poe said under her breath.

Her throat constricted. She swallowed her tears, avoiding any sentimental nonsense to claim her emotions. She saw the slowly moving puppets of 236

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darkness clicking their way toward them. The fire illuminated dozens of Revenents. They were the first wave sent to eviscerate Sainvire’s holdovers.

“Revenents!” yelled Michelle from her perch.

“Damn Revenents. Prepare yourselves!”

Tearing his eyes away from the burning house, Joseph calmly approached several of the walking skeletons and doused them with the canister of gasoline he held in his hand. He lit a match and watched as a handful of them caught fire. With a steady voice he asked Michelle to climb down from the tree.

“I can shoot them from here,” she protested but climbed down nonetheless.

“You’re getting on that helicopter, Michelle,” he said solemnly, leaving no room for arguments.

For once Michelle had no smart aleck retort. She understood that the conflagration was Megan’s funeral pyre.

Poe fired on as many heads until she exhausted the shots in her rifle. But they kept coming in droves.

“Mom and Dad, help us!” prayed Poe quietly.

“Let my death be at my own hands.”

The helicopter hovered past the barn roof during a practice run, bringing a weak smile from Poe.

“Good job, Rufus!” she yelled once it landed feebly in the back of the barn. She was scared as hell at the flying machine crashing after a mile in the air.

“Not me, man,” he hollered from out the helicopter window. “It’s your friend, Maclemar! It was all him. Genius, he is!”

Poe’s grin wavered. A few yards away flew Sainvire, burdened by a limp body in his arms. He soared low due to several Revenents latching on to 237

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his legs. The weight was dragging him lower and lower to the ground – to the grasping arms of flesh hungry Revenents.

“Hold on, Kaleb,” she whispered. She took aim at the Revenent wearing a crusty tuxedo and hugging Sainvire’s right leg. Another creature tugged his other leg. “It has to be the head,” she said, calling on the sharp-shooter in her. “I am Bruce Lee’s daughter, Jackie Chan’s niece, and Xena’s clone.”

Pop. Pop.

As soon as the hangers-on lost their grip as they mislaid their heads, Sainvire was able to soar higher, reaching the anxious group behind the barn. Prentis, a pretty blonde the same height as Sainvire, was in his arms. Her left arm hung by a few strands of muscle and sinew. Ed swiftly took the halfdead from Sainvire’s arms and arranged her next to Perla inside the helicopter.

“I can’t take the opening,” said Michelle apprehensively. “Give it to Poe. Or to Maclemar.”

“Get in, Michelle,” Sainvire ordered. “And you, too, Maclemar.”

“No. Not me. Let Poe go,” Maclemar said. He shook his head.

“Eight people only, remember?” interrupted Rufus. “Sorry, but this baby is unreliable.”

“He can take my place,” assured Sainvire. “Get in, James.”

“No way,” Maclemar said angrily. “Let Poe—”

“Leave her to me, man. I’ll fly her away from here.” Before Maclemar could further protest, Sainvire said, “Look. She’s the lightest one out of all of you. Don’t worry. I won’t try to steal her away 238

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from you. I can’t even think about such things right now.”

Poe, left to use the ArmaLite because her rifle was out of ammo, was too busy mowing down Revs and the trickling vampires to notice the spectacle below her. When a gust of air nearly blew her smaller guns off the barn roof, Poe looked up in time to see Michelle and her friends shooting at creatures below from inside the chopper. That was when she noticed Maclemar’s grim eyes looking directly at her helmeted face from the window. He placed his perpetually dirty hand to his heart until she could see him no longer.

Sainvire fought off two vampires that could fly.

He slashed them with his sharp blade-length nails and disappeared along with the helicopter.

Her eyes watered. She couldn’t help it. She was alone in a sea of monsters.

Blinking away her tears Poe concentrated on the vampires climbing onto the roof. She blasted them as she ran upon the roof frame sections undamaged by Rufus’ sloppy helicopter landing. When her ArmaLite clunked empty, she picked up the Tanfoglio and Beretta and fired at the ten wily, rancid nightmares that had made it to the roof.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Mom and Dad, I need your help,” she pleaded.

Poe turned to her right in time to see the thundering yellow monstrosity of a bulldozer at maximum acceleration. The vamps that saw the machine coming jumped from the roof. “Penny, you better run!” she cried.

Her left hand pulled the trigger on those still unaware of the impending destruction wrought by a 239

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giant Tonka toy while her right hand pointed the Beretta at her own forehead.

“May you all make it safely and continue the fight. Sorry I didn’t get to play with you, Piper,” she said. With a strained smile and a nervous cough, she prepared to die.

240

THE GUN WAS YANKED away from her hand. The roof beneath her collapsed.

Before falling into the gaping hole the bulldozer had chunked, Poe felt her legs lift into the air. Bullets grazed her thigh and dinged off her helmet. But she kept flying. It was as if she was dead after all.

Old Man Death was a funny thing. He looked like the man she loved, and he carried her dog under his other arm.

“Sainvire?” she asked in a daze.

“Sorry to botch up another suicide attempt, Poe.

But I can’t handle you out of this world while I exist.”

“I guess I’m not dead ’cause I have altitude sickness.”

“No, but you will be if you don’t shoot at the ancient undead on our trail,” he said. He adjusted her on his shoulder like he was burping her while keeping the dog comfortable with his other arm.

Penny the dog took to the air like a real trooper. Poe really was the best shooter Sainvire had ever seen.

“Right,” Poe nodded. She reached for a firearm in her side sheath. “Still alive. I gotta kill.”

Even in the air Poe’s sure-shot skills hadn’t abandoned her. A gift from God, Sister Ann had claimed more than once.
It’s a gift ’cause God owes
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me
, Poe thought sarcastically as she shot each long-toothed gremlin that pursued them with precision.

God knows how much life sucks in vampire times, so
he made me pest control.

Sundry other thoughts floated in her mind even when she killed the last flying nasty. Two years ago she had depleted the flying vamp population in L.A.

with the help of a rifle. Sainvire shifted her position once more so she could wind her arms about his neck. She could feel his disfigured shoulder bulging beneath her forearm. The moonlight emphasized the fatigue about his face. The vampire was even slightly shaking. With gentleness not known to Poe, she touched the scar above his lips.

“You know something?” she said while staring into his silver eyes. “I think you’re my hero.”

Sainvire laughed as he prepared to descend to a hard-to-reach field surrounded by rocky slopes. “I think you’re mistaken. As far as I know I’ve always been on the losing side of things. I believe I’ve never been successful in anything, so I hope you’re not serious.”

Poe felt solid ground. Reluctantly she let her arms fall to her side. “Heroes don’t have to be winners all the time.” Penny whined and ran around in circles in praise of the land beneath her feet.

“It sure would help,” he sighed. He collapsed behind a boulder. “Help me with this coat, will you?”

She pulled the dark coat from his arms and about his shoulder. It was only then that she noticed the wetness of his shirt. His back and limbs were riddled with bullets still lodged in the skin, and his left side had been cut three inches deep. Brackish blood 242

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trickled from his side. “Kaleb! You’ve been hit!” she cried.

“I know,” said Sainvire. “I think I’m done for.”

“What’s your problem? Everyone and their dog’s wearing bulletproof vests but you? Do you have a death wish or something?” she accused. Tears spilled down her cheek. “And don’t say that. You’re not gonna die. I won’t let you!”

“You seem to have a magical pack,” he said lightly, wincing. “Would you happen to have Plasmacore on you?”

“No. Sorry,” Poe answered gravely. “You’re going to be okay, aren’t you?”

“Sure. Just let me sleep. With luck the bullets will pop out by themselves soon enough, and this wound on my side will solder together.” Sainvire had made himself a guinea pig by undergoing garlic injections to introduce the poison into his system.

Years later the vampire achieved his goal by achieving immunity to the potent vampire killer.

She brushed Sainvire’s hair from his forehead.

The vampire’s skin felt clammy to the touch. “How about I cut myself and give you some of my blood?”

Sainvire smiled weakly. “Thanks for the offer, but your blood would weaken me even more. I might not be able to withstand the sun if I go back to drinking pure human blood.”

“What about animal blood?” she asked in a desperate voice.

“Penny?”

“Shut up. Of course not!”

“Animal blood would sustain me for a few hours, but I think most creatures know to hide once the sun goes down.”