Guido was surprisingly good at clearing a path for us. I had never really seen my bodyguard in action, but with his constant carping and allergy problems throughout this venture, I was tending to discount his usefulness. Not so. The vampires we encountered in our flight had not heard the alarm and were unprepared for the whirlwind that burst into their midst. Guido never seemed to break stride as he barreled into victim after victim, but whatever he did to them was effective. None of the fallen bodies which marked his progress attempted to interfere with Aahz or I … heck, they didn’t even move.
“River ahead. Boss!” he called over his shoulder.
“What’s that?” I puffed, realizing for the first time how out of shape I had grown during my prosperous stay at the Bazaar.
“A river!” he repeated. “The street we’re on is going to dead-end into a river in a few blocks. I can see it from here. We’re going to have to change direction or we’ll get pinned against the water.”
I wondered whether it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to just plunge into the river and put some moving water between us and the vampires, as I seemed to recall a legend that that was one of the things that could stop them. Then it occurred to me that my bodyguard probably couldn’t swim.
“Head right!” Aahz shouted. “There! Up that alley.”
Guido darted off on the indicated course with my partner and I pounding along about fifteen paces behind him. We had built up a bit of a lead on our pursuers, though we could still hear their cries and yelps a block or so back, and for the first time I started to have the hope that we might actually elude them. Now that we were out of their line of sight . . .