Bad Moon Rising (Pine Deep 3)

In the hall, the vampire was bent over, feeding off the old lady, ignoring the other patients. When he felt the old woman’s heart give out, he plucked her off the floor and threw her at two other patients, who went down in a bone-breaking tumble. He rose and kicked a wheelchair over and stomped down on the head of the old man who toppled out of it. The old man’s head exploded and the vampire smiled. He was at the height of his powers after the long night of killing and feeding. He could kill all of these people if he wanted. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Vic playing with his new toy, and he smiled.

The vampire turned back to the crowd and grabbed the struts on

the nearest gurney, on which lay a small man with a pain-gray face. The vampire froze in place, his hands still on the struts. The little man on the gurney was pointing a pistol at him. It was a huge Ruger Blackhawk and its mouth stared blackly at the vampire from less than six feet away. There was no way for the vampire to know if the gun was loaded with ordinary bullets or more garlic, and he paused in uncertainty. Terror and pain were painted all over the patient’s features and his eyes were glassy with fever.

The vampire smiled.

The man smiled.

The vampire lunged at him and the man shot him through the eye.

The blast threw the vampire backward, all life extinguished in a single moment as the garlic-filled dum-dum punched through his brain; the recoil pitched the patient back onto the bed with a chest-jarring thump. Newton dropped the pistol and clutched his shattered chest with both hands as new pain detonated within him.

Vic Wingate made Jonatha back up step by step until they were both at the door. He could see the hallway beyond and he saw the last of his bodyguards go down with his head half blown away. Vic kicked the door shut in the faces of the terrified patients. Keeping the gun in place, he released Jonatha with the other and reached out to turn the lock.

Jonatha knew she was going to die. She knew she was going to die badly, because she had a good idea who this man was—a man with a burned face who worked with the vampires. It had to be the kid’s stepfather. It had to be Vic Wingate. The thought terrified her so severely that she felt horror trying to pull her down into darkness. What was it the kid had said? Vic is Griswold’s right hand. It was Vic who rigged all the explosions. It was Vic who took care of Griswold all these years, who protected him. Vic had been behind most of what happened all along.

Vic saw the defeat in her eyes and licked his blistered lips. His good eye crawled up and down her. “My, my,” he said, “You are something. Just what the doctor ordered,

’cause it’s been a real bitch of a day. ”

He backed her up to the examination table; her hip hit it hard and he moved so close to her that she breathed his exhaled breath. Vic put his free hand on her chest, cupping her breasts and hefting their weight. “My oh my oh my, but you are something else. You’re half unreal, you know that, girlie-girl? You’re like a gift from Heaven, you are. You just came down from Heaven to be with ol’ Vic. You’re what a sick man needs to feel good. Shame you’re a nigger, but what the hell, it’s all pink inside. ” Open sores oozed clear mucus on his face as he leered at her.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged as tears welled from her eyes. Her heart hammered to get out of her chest. “Please. ”

“Well, well, it is nice to hear you say please. ” He licked his lips again and his hand never stopped touching her. He sought out her nipples and pinched them and laughed as she yelped and flinched. Jonatha wanted to throw up. She wanted to run, but she felt as if all the power had been sucked out of her muscles by his invading touch. “Say it again. C’mon, girlie-girl, say it again. ”

“P . . . please . . . ”

“Again. ”

“Please!”

“Again. ”

“Please, for God’s sake! Please!”

“Well, since you ask so nice . . . ” and he grabbed the collar of her sweatshirt and gave it a vicious and powerful jerk.

Cloth ripped and his fingernails scraped painfully across her sternum. The gun barrel pressed harder as he ripped and tore at the cloth, shredded it, exposing her upper breasts and the white bra, and all the time he muttered a kind of chant that sent cold chills racing up and down her spine. “Here it comes. Oh boy, here it comes. Here it comes now . . . ”

She saw the specter of death looming above Vic’s shoulder, she saw it grinning through his melted face and burning in his eyes. She saw the future in those fiery eyes. She saw rape and pain and humiliation, and at the end of it all, she saw her agonizing and pointless death. In all her nightmares of vampires and werewolves, in all her research into demons and beasts, in all of her studies into the nature of evil, she had never conjured an image more terrifying than this madman with the scorched face. She could understand monsters that killed because it was their supernatural nature, she could understand beasts that were trapped within the dictates of an ancient curse, or driven by primal instincts that were completely beyond control, but this was an ordinary man. A human being capable of making his own choices, capable of understanding right from wrong and good from evil. This was a chosen, deliberate evil, and Jonatha suddenly understood that this was the worst kind of evil. In this man she saw all the evil of the human kind seething with life and power, glaring at her with lust and hunger, ready to rip her life away.

“Here it comes, girlie-girl. Oh boy, here it comes . . . ” His strong fingers hooked inside the edge of one bra cup and began to pull. Jonatha screamed.

And then she hit him.

Before she was even aware that she was going to do it, one hand smashed the pistol aside and the other slammed into Vic’s burned face with her rigid palm and hooked fingernails. It exploded the blisters and drove spikes of red-hot pain into his head—and he screamed even louder than Jonatha had. His finger jerked on the trigger and the gun fired, but the bullet tore into a cabinet.

“Get away from me!” Jonatha shoved him with both hands and Vic stumbled and stumbled back, but instead of taking the chance to run, she chased him and hit him again and again, pounding on the gory ruin of his face, screeching so shrilly that it hurt Vic’s ears almost as much as the blows that kept raining down. Vic’s blood splashed abstract patterns across her torn shirt, across her screaming face; it sparkled like rubies in her short hair; and he swung wildly with the pistol and caught Jonatha on the arm, spinning her halfway around.

Vic was in such immediate pain that he didn’t even try to shoot her—he just wanted to get away; so with blood in his eyes and his head in a bag of thorns he tore free and staggered toward the door and clumsied it open just as he heard a sound that chilled his boiling blood. Jonatha had retrieved her shotgun and jacked a round into the breech.

“Bastard!” She fired a shot that chopped a hole the size of a dinner plate out of the jamb a yard from his head, but Vic was ducking and weaving, and then he plowed into the crowd of patients, bashing and kicking at them, tossing them behind him to block pursuit and give her no chance at a shot.

In the hall, Newton lay on the gurney, nearly as blind with pain as Vic. He was frozen in the act of digging into his pants pocket for a tissue to wipe sweat from his eyes. He didn’t know who this guy was—but like Jonatha he could make a reasonable guess. His pistol tangled in his sheets where he’d dropped it after shooting the vampire and after the shock of that act had buried a knife of pain in his chest.

The gun wasn’t visible to this killer, but reaching for it would draw his fire.