Circus of the Damned (Vampire Hunter 3)

"Yes."

"Then put me back, please." He had rallied and found his dignity. It was nightmarish when the zombie refused to believe. You could still lay them to rest, but the clients had to hold them down on the grave while they screamed. I'd only had that happen twice, but I remembered each time as if it had happened last night. Some things don't dim with time.

I threw salt against his chest. It sounded like sleet hitting a roof. "With salt I bind you to your grave."

I had the still-bloody knife in my hand. I wiped the gelling blood across his lips. He didn't jerk away. He believed. "With blood and steel I bind you to your grave, Andrew Doughal. Be at peace, and walk no more."

The zombie laid full length on the mound of flowers. The flowers seemed to flow over him like quicksand, and just like that he was swallowed back into the grave.

We stood there a minute in the empty graveyard. The only sounds were the wind sighing high up in the trees and the melancholy song of the year's last crickets. In Charlotte's Web, the crickets sang, "Summer is over and gone. Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying." The first hard frost, and the crickets would be dying. They were like Chicken Little, who told everyone the sky was falling; except in this case, the crickets were right.

The crickets stopped suddenly like someone had turned a switch. I held my breath, straining to hear. There was nothing but the wind, and yet... My shoulders were so tight they hurt. "Larry?"

He turned innocent eyes to me. "What?"

There, three trees to our left, a man's figure was silhouetted against the moonlight. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, on the right side. More than one. The darkness felt alive with eyes. More than two.

I used Larry's body to shield me from the eyes, drawing my gun, holding it along my leg so it wouldn't be obvious.

Larry's eyes widened. "Jesus, what's wrong?" His voice was a hoarse whisper. He didn't give us away. Good for him. I started herding him towards the cars, slowly, just your friendly neighborhood animators finished with their night's work and going home to a well-deserved rest.

"There are people out here."

"After us?"

"After me, more likely," I said.

"Why?"

I shook my head. "No time for explanations. When I say run, run like hell for the cars."

"How do you know they mean to hurt us?" His eyes were flashing a lot of white. He saw them now, too. Shadows moving closer, people out in the dark.

"How do you know they don't mean to hurt us?" I asked.

"Good point," he said. His breathing was fast and shallow. We were maybe twenty feet from the cars.

"Run," I said.

"What?" his voice sounded startled.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him into a run for the cars. I pointed the gun at the ground, still hoping whoever it was wouldn't be prepared for a gun.

Larry was running on his own, puffing a little from fear, smoking, and maybe he didn't run four miles every other day.

A man stepped in front of the cars. He brought up a large revolver. The Browning was already moving. It fired before my aim was steady. The muzzle flashed brilliant in the dark. The man jumped, not used to being shot at. His shot whined into the darkness to our left. He froze for the seconds it took me to aim and fire again. Then he crumpled to the ground and didn't get up again.

"Shit." Larry breathed it like a sigh.

A voice yelled, "She's got a gun."

"Where's Martin?"

"She shot him."

I guess Martin was the one with the gun. He still wasn't moving. I didn't know if I killed him or not. I wasn't sure I cared, as long as he didn't get up and shoot at us again.

My car was closer. I shoved car keys into Larry's hands. "Open the door, open the passenger side door, then start the car. Do you understand me?"

He nodded, freckles standing out in the pale circle of his face. I had to trust that he wouldn't panic and take off without me. He wouldn't do it out of malice, just fear.

Figures were converging from all directions. There had to be a dozen or more. The sound of running feet whispering on grass came over the wind.

Larry stepped over the body. I kicked a .45 away from the limp hand. The gun slid out of sight under the car. If I hadn't been pressed for time, I'd have checked his pulse. I always like to know if I've killed someone. Makes the police report go so much smoother.

Larry had the car door open and was leaning over to unlock the passenger side door. I aimed at one of the running figures and pulled the trigger. The figure stumbled, fell, and started screaming. The others hesitated. They weren't used to being shot at. Poor babies.

I slid into the car and yelled, "Drive, drive, drive!"

Larry peeled out in a spray of gravel. The car fishtailed, headlights swaying crazily. "Don't wrap us around a tree, Larry."

His eyes flicked to me. "Sorry." The car slowed from stomach-turning speed to grab-the-door-handle-and-hold-on speed. We were staying between the trees; that was something.

The headlights bounced off trees; tombstones flashed white. The car skidded around a curve, gravel spitting. A man stood framed in the middle of the road. Jeremy Ruebens of Humans First stood pale and shining in the lights. He stood in the middle of a flat stretch of road. If we could make the turn beyond him, we'd be out on the highway and safe.

The car was slowing down.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I can't just hit him," Larry said.

"The hell you can't."

"I can't!" His voice wasn't outraged, it was scared.

"He's just playing chicken with us, Larry. He'll move."

"Are you sure?" A little boy's voice asking if there really was a monster in the closet.

"I'm sure; now floor it and get us out of here."

He pressed down on the accelerator. The car jumped forward, rushing toward the small, straight figure of Jeremy Ruebens.

"He's not moving," Larry said.

"He'll move," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me."

His eyes flicked to me, then back to the road. "You better be right," he whispered.

I believed Ruebens would move. Honest. But even if he wasn't bluffing, the only way out was either past him or through him. It was Ruebens's choice.

The headlights bathed him in glaring white light. His small, dark features glared at us. He wasn't moving.

"He isn't moving," Larry said.

"He'll move," I said.

"Shit," Larry said. I couldn't have agreed more.

The headlights roared up onto Jeremy Ruebens, and he threw himself to one side. There was the sound of brushing cloth as his coat slid along the car's side. Close, damn close.

Larry picked up speed and swung us around the last corner and into the last straight stretch. We spilled out onto the highway in a shower of gravel and spinning tires. But we were out of the cemetery. We'd made it. Thank you, God.

Larry's hands were white on the steering wheel. "You can ease down now," I said. "We're safe."

He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. The car started gradually approaching the speed limit. His face was beaded with sweat that had nothing to do with the cool October evening.

"You all right?"

"I don't know." His voice sounded sort of hollow. Shock.

"You did good back there."

"I thought I was going to run over him. I thought I was going to kill him with the car."

"He thought so, too, or he wouldn't have moved," I said.

He looked at me. "What if he hadn't moved?"

"He did move."

"But what if he hadn't?"

"Then we would have gone over him, and we'd still be on the highway, safe."

"You would have let me run him down, wouldn't you?"

"Survival is the name of the game, Larry. If you can't deal with that, find another business to be in."

"Animators don't get shot at."

"Those were members of Humans First, a right-wing fanatic group that hates anything to do with the supernatural." So I was leaving out about the personal visit from Jeremy Ruebens. What the kid didn't know might not hurt him.

I stared at his pale face. He looked hollow-eyed. He'd met the dragon, a little dragon as dragons go, but once you've seen violence, you're never the same again. The first time you have to decide, live or die, us or them, it changes you forever. No going back. I stared at Larry's shocked face and wished it could have been different. I wished I could have kept him shining, new, and hopeful. But as my Grandmother Blake used to say, "If wishes were horses, we'd all ride."