"Who hired you?" Jez said softly, each word coming out like a chip of ice. "Who sent you after my cousin?"
She stared into the reddish eyes, trying to reach into the girl's soul and yank an answer out of her.
"Nobody messes with my family," she whispered. "Whoever sent you is going to be sorry."
She couldn't ever remember feeling so angry. And she was so focused on the girl, so intent, that it wasn't until Claire screamed that she realized someone was approaching behind her.
"Jez, watch out!"
The yell woke Jez up. Without releasing her hold on the female 'wolf, she turned around-just in time to see a male vampire stalking her. He must have come up the down escalator.
And behind him, unbelievably, was Claire, running and getting ready for a flying tackle.
"Claire, don't!" Jez yelled. She struck the female 'wolf once, with deadly accuracy, on the side of the jaw to knock her out. Then she sprang toward the vampire.
But Claire was already grabbing him-a completely futile and foolish gesture. He whipped around and seized a handful of dark hair, and then he was holding Claire in a choke hold, putting her body between him and Jez.
"One more step and I'll break her neck," he warned.
Jez skidded to a stop.
"You let go of my cousin," she spat.
"No, I really think we need to talk first," he said, the beginnings of an ugly grin on his face. "You're the one who's going to give answers-"
Jez kicked him.
A roundhouse kick to his knees while he was busy talking. She didn't worry about keeping it nonlethal.
She only cared about breaking his hold on Claire.-
It worked. He lost his grip, stumbling sideways. Jez grabbed Claire and thrust her out of the way, shouting "Run! The escalator's right there!"
But Claire didn't run. "I want to help you!"
"Idiot!" Jez didn't have time to say that Claire couldn't help her; could only hurt her. The vampire had recovered and was moving toward her in fighting position.
He was big, probably over two hundred pounds. And he was a full vampire, which gave him the advantage of strength and speed. And he was smarter than the 'wolves; he wasn't just going to lunge.
And Jez didn't have a weapon.
"Just keep behind me, okay?" she snarled under her breath to Claire.
The vampire grinned at that. He knew Jez was vulnerable. She was going to have to keep half her attention on protecting Claire.
And then, just as he was about to make an attack, Jez heard the smack of footsteps on concrete.
Running footsteps, with a weird little hesitation between them, like somebody with a limp....
She flashed a look toward the stairs. Hugh had just rounded the top. He was out of breath and bleeding from cuts on his face. But as soon as he saw her and the vampire he waved his arms and yelled.
"Hey! Ugly Undead! Your friend missed me! You want to have a try?"
Hugh? Jez thought in disbelief. Fighting?
"Come on, hey; I'm here; I'm easy." Hugh was hopping toward the vampire, who was also flashing looks at him, trying to assess this new danger while not taking his focus off Jez.
"You want to go a few rounds?" Hugh dropped into a boxer's pose, throwing punches at the air. "Huh?
You want to try for the title?" All the time he was speaking, he was dancing closer to the vampire, circling to get behind him.
Beautiful, Jez thought. All she needed was for the vampire to shift his attention for one second-just to glance behind him once-and she could kick his face in.
It didn't work that way. Something went wrong.
The vampire tried to glance behind him. Jez saw her chance and made the kick, a high kick that snapped his head back. But somehow instead of falling backward the vampire managed to blunder forward straight at her. She could easily have gotten away-except for Claire.
Claire had obediently kept behind her-even when behind her meant standing right by the BART tracks, on the yellow metal squares that marked the edge of the platform. Now, as the vampire stumbled forward and Jez began to slide out of the way, she heard Claire gasp, felt Claire clutch at her wildly.
She knew what had happened instantly. Claire had tried to run the wrong way and was teetering on the edge of the platform. More, she was taking Jez with her.
There was a distant rumble like thunder.
Jez knew she could save herself-by getting rid of Claire. She could use Claire's body as a springboard to propel herself away from the drop. That way, only one of them would die.
Instead, she tried to twist and throw Claire away from her, toward safety. It didn't work. They both lost their balance. Jez had the strange, surprised feeling one gets in the middle of a fell-where's the ground?-and then she hit it It was a bad fell because she was tangled with Claire. All Jez could do was try to keep Claire* away from the third rail on the far side of the track. The impact winded both of them and Jez saw stars.
She could hear Hugh screaming her name. The distant thunder had become a roaring, whizzing sound, carried through the tracks underneath Jez. Down here, she could feel a rattling that wasn't audible from above. It was a noise that filled her head and shook her body.
She knew absolutely, in that instant, that they were going to die.
Both of them. Crushed to pieces under the train. The white dragon would run right over them and not even know it.
There was simply no chance. Claire was clinging to her desperately, clawing Jez's arms hard enough to draw blood, and gasping in the breath for a scream. And even if Jez had been a full vampire, she couldn't have lifted Claire the four feet to the platform fast enough.
There was nothing to save them, no hope. No rescue. It was over.
All of this flashed through Jez's mind in the single instant it took her to look up and see the train bearing down on them. Its sleek white nose was only thirty feet away, and it was braking, but nowhere near fast enough, and this was it, the actual moment of her death, the last thoughts she would ever think, and the last thing she would ever see was white, white, white-
Blue.
It happened all at once, filling her vision. One second she could see clearly, the next the entire world was blue. Not just blue. Fiery, dazzling, lightning-shot blue. Like being inside some sort of science-fiction special effect. There was blue streaming and crackling and sizzling all around her, a cocoon of blue that enfolded her and shot past her and disappeared somewhere ahead. |