The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon (40 page)

Toni heard Treja gasp. She turned to see him retreating from the huntress, clasping his throat, blood flowing between his fingers. The huntress pursued him, lashing at him with a sword. She had her back to Toni.

Smashing the glass of the nearby display case, Toni removed two daggers. Brandishing one in each hand, she lunged at Alison from behind.

Melinda heard the
sounds of police sirens approaching down Independence Avenue and figured they were heading for the Freer. In anticipation, she moved away from the front entrance and closer to the sidewalk. Falling to her knees, she willed herself to cry. By the time the squad car came to a stop behind the white van, she had worked herself into a state of feigned anxiety.

Two cops stepped out of the squad car, each placing a hand on their service revolvers. At first, neither of them noticed Melinda, their attention fixed on the van. A lanky Asian stood by the van’s left rear quarter and provided cover while his partner, a middle-aged guy with a sizeable paunch that strained against his blue shirt, moved over to the passenger side window and looked inside the vehicle with his flashlight.

“Help me,” Melinda wailed.

The two cops raced over to her. The Asian cop knelt down. His fat partner took a few steps beyond them and stopped, searching the area for any immediate danger, his gaze drawn to the shattered glass door of the museum.

“My name’s Tran,” said the Asian cop, trying to comfort her. “Are you okay?”

She sobbed and nodded her head.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Three mean-looking men grabbed my mom. They broke the door and took her in there.” Melinda pointed to the gallery. “I’m afraid they’re going to hurt her.”

“Everything will be fine,” reassured Tran.

“What were you and your mother doing out here at this hour?” asked the fat cop.

“Pleeeease,” sobbed Melinda. “Help my mom.”

“We will.” Tran shot his partner a disapproving glance and mouthed for his partner to call for backup.

The fat cop reached up and pressed the talk button on the microphone attached to his shoulder strap. “Headquarters. This is unit twelve. We have a situation down here by the Freer Gallery. Looks like the alarm was tripped by—”

As the fat cop called in for support, Melinda wiped the tears from her face. She looked up at Tran, a distraught little girl who desperately needed comforting. “Will my mother be all right?”

“Yes.”

Melinda wrapped her arms around Tran and hugged him tight. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart.”

“And hope to die?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Tran never knew what happened. The hands that hugged him suddenly tore into his back, digging into the flesh and muscles. He tried to pull away, and when he did chunks of skin cleaved off his back. Tran opened his mouth to call for help, but Melinda clasped him tighter, forcing the air out of his lungs. She plunged her fangs into his neck, pressed her cold lips against his skin, and drank his blood.

“—need a trauma unit for the girl. Hang on a minute.”

Hearing the noise behind him, the fat cop turned around. His eyes widened in shock. “What the fuck?”

“What’s wrong?” asked the dispatcher.

He did not answer. Nor did he remove his hand from the talk button. “Get the fuck off him!”

Melinda ignored him and continued to feed off of Tran.

“Unit twelve, what’s going on?” asked the dispatcher, more frantic this time.

The fat cop pulled his service revolver from its holster. He lowered it toward Melinda’s back, his aim shaky.

“Leave him alone or I’ll shoot.”

A loud crunch echoed off the stairs and glass doors as Melinda twisted Tran’s head at a ninety-degree angle to the right, snapping his spine. Tran’s body went limp.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

The fat cop panicked, squeezing the trigger repeatedly until he emptied the chamber. All six rounds were fired erratically, slamming into Melinda’s back in a scattered pattern rather than a tight cluster. The wounds had no effect. She stood and faced him.

“You’re too fat to be a cop,” Melinda snarled. “You need to lose weight.”

Melinda slashed her taloned fingers across the cop’s expansive stomach. A long slit formed horizontally across his shirt and widened, revealing a razor-thin gash. The gash widened, starting at his navel and spreading outward, slowly at first but soon increasing speed until his entire abdomen broke open. The cop’s viscera twisted out of his body like some hideous octopus squirming along the ocean floor, and dropped to the pavement with a sickening thud. He stared at them, leaking blood and gore onto the ground. With a final, stunned gasp, the cop’s eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed in front of Melinda. Only then did his finger move off of the microphone talk button.

Transforming back into her human form, Melinda waded through the pile of organs and intestines, leaving a trail of bloody footprints back to the museum entrance. Once inside, she made her way to the rear of the small corridor leading to the guard room where she could remain out of sight. She crouched down and waited for the police backup to arrive.

Breaking out of
the emergency stairwell into the basement, Jessica and Reese looked around for the exit. They found it ten feet down the corridor to the right. Jessica raced to it, pressed the bar to unlock the door, and slammed into the metal.

“Shit, it won’t open.”

Reese tapped her shoulder and pointed to a red sign attached to the center. It stated that federal law required the door to be unlocked during business hours, but that it would remain locked when the museum was closed.

Jessica sighed. “What do we do now?”

“Find another way out.”

Akers stood at
the bottom of the stairwell on the basement landing that led either to the museum archives or the remainder of the basement, utility rooms, and access areas building maintenance, trying to remember the basement floor plan he had studied in the guard room. He pushed open the door to the maintenance area and headed off down the dimly-lit corridor. If he calculated correctly, the emergency exit that led from the exhibit hall should be at the end of the upcoming corridor on the right. He just hoped that the professor and the reporter had not already—

Jessica and Reese turned the corner and ran into Akers. Jessica let out a squeaky gasp and splashed him with liquid from a flask. At first he feared it might be acid. Instead of searing pain, he felt wetness.

“What the fuck?” he asked, wiping his hand across his face. “What was that for?”

“Sorry.” Jessica sounded embarrassed. “I thought you were…. Never mind.”

“Who are you?” asked Reese.

“The night cleaning crew,” Akers lied. “I was down here working when all hell broke loose upstairs. I was trying to find a way out when I ran into you two.”

“You won’t get out that way.” Jessica pointed over her shoulder at the locked emergency door.

“Any suggestions?” asked Reese.

“Yeah,” said Akers coming up with a scheme to trap the hunters. “Follow me.”

Jessica raced after him. Reese followed, but not as compliantly. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a stairwell over here that leads to the first floor and to the roof.”

He led them back to the main stairwell. Opening the door, he stepped aside and held it open for the others.

“Aren’t you joining us?” asked Reese.

“After you.”

Reese pulled Jessica out of the doorway and stepped back a few feet himself, clutching the Bible tighter against his chest. “You know the way. You lead.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. We don’t have time fo—”

A vicious growl emanated from the direction they had just come. The hooker vampire stood at the intersection of corridors where Jessica and Reese had run into Akers. It bore its fangs and charged. The runaway vampire turned the corner a second later and joined the attack.

“Shit,” muttered Reese.

“Hurry.” Akers shoved Jessica into the stairwell. This time, Reese followed.

Akers slammed the door shut behind them.

The hooker slid up to the stairwell, slamming her fist against the door. “You fool. You let them escape.”

Akers shook his head. “This stairwell has only two exits. The first floor and the roof. They have nowhere to go.”

The runaway reached the door. “Let’s get them.”

“No,” said Akers. “You keep them trapped in there. I’ll get Chiang Shih.”

Reese turned to
make sure Akers made it through. Instead, he saw the little bastard slam the door on them. He looked around to assess the situation. The door to his right led to the archives, but he knew there was no other exit from that area that did not lead back into the underground corridors and to the two vampires they just escaped. Besides, being the employee stairwell, all the doors allowing entrance to the office spaces required a key card and access code, neither of which he had. That left only one alternative. Reese began to climb the stairs.

“Come on.”

“Where?” asked Jessica.

“The roof. The sun will be rising soon. It’s our safest bet.”

The ringing of
the telephone on the nightstand shattered the stillness, startling Roach out of his sleep. Late night calls were commonplace in his line of work. That did not mean he had to enjoy them. Sitting up in bed and leaning back against the head board, Roach picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Sorry to wake you.” Preston sounded obnoxiously chipper for this hour. “But we have a clusterfuck of a situation on our hands.”

What else is new
? Roach thought. “Fill me in.”

“Someone tripped the alarm at the Freer Gallery less than an hour ago.”

“Big deal. It happens all the time.”

“Dispatch called the night security guard, but got no answer. So they sent out a unit. They reported finding a little girl out front who claimed that three men had dragged her mother into the museum. Halfway through the call, the dispatcher heard an animal’s howl, one of the cops emptying his revolver, and a scream. Then the connection went dead.”

The latter caught Roach’s attention. “Dispatch all available units to the Freer.”

“I already did. I’m heading over there myself. I thought you’d want to meet me.”

“Damn straight.” Roach jumped out of bed and headed for the closet. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t have any units enter the museum unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Roger that.”

Rodriguez pushed back
against the bald vampire, his hands wrapped around its neck. His muscles strained and his arms grew weak. The vampire’s head inched closer to his neck. He could feel its cold breath against his skin. At best, Rodriguez had seconds to live.

Something glistened on the floor and caught Rodriguez’ attention. He turned his head to see a large, triangular-shaped piece of glass from the broken display case. A long shot, but at the moment he had only one. Stiffening his left arm against its neck, Rodriguez let go with his right and reached for the shard. As expected, he could not hold it back with just one hand. Rodriguez’ arm collapsed, and the vampire fell on him. He cried out as it plunged its fangs into his neck, and his stomach went sick as he felt the thing begin sucking his blood. Feeling around for the shard, his fingertips brushed against it. Rodriguez clutched the shard and drove it into the vampire’s neck. The pain that ripped through his hand nearly caused him to black out as the razor-sharp edges dug two huge slices along his palm and fingers.

The shard hurt the vampire far worse. It embedded in the vampire’s neck, entering on the left, ripping through the larynx, and coming out the other side. The vampire sat upright, clutching at its throat and gurgling. With a single yank, it pulled the shard out of its neck and tossed it aside. Blood fountained from the wound. It stumbled to its feet, trying to escape. Rodriguez rolled to his right and knocked the vampire’s legs out from under it. As it sprawled to the floor, Rodriguez scrambled to his feet. Grabbing the vampire by its jacket collar, he lifted it off the floor, dragged it over to the broken display case, and dropped it neck first onto a vertical pane of broken glass. Placing one hand on its collar and the other on the back of its head, Rodriguez sawed its neck back and forth along the glass. With each pull, the glass dug deeper and deeper into its neck. The snuffy panicked, flailing its arms over its head. Rodriguez sawed more furiously, pushing down harder with each thrust. Suddenly, the edge of the glass ripped through the back of the vampire’s neck. Its head dropped to the floor, exploding into a ball of ash. Blood gushed out of the severed neck, splashing onto the display case. Its body began to crumble at the neck, then spread across the shoulders and down the torso and arms.

Rodriguez stood in disbelief. He had come to believe in the existence of the undead, but this was different. He actually had seen one up close, actually had killed one. Now that he had experienced the hunt, there could be no going back.

He looked around the exhibit hall for another one to kill.

Having slashed open
Treja’s throat, Alison was about to advance on the master and finish it off when something slammed into her from behind, sending her sprawling. She slid across the debris-cluttered floor and banged into the rack. Though stunned, intuition told her not to waste precious seconds trying to regain her senses. Alison struggled to her feet, placing one hand on the rack for support.

Toni stepped up and stabbed one of the daggers through her palm, impaling Alison’s hand to the wood. The pain radiated from the wound, up her arm, and through her body. She cried out despite herself.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” asked Toni as she stepped around in front of Alison.

“Fuck off.”

“Get over it. Your wounds will heal.” Toni cackled as she crouched down in front of Alison. Her voice seethed with hatred. “My scars, on the other hand, are permanent. Thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome,” Alison gasped through the pain. “Let me know if I can make you any uglier.”