From the darkness behind Jessie, a familiar, rasping voice spoke: “However, in order to do that, Mr. Blake, you will first have to get out of this cemetery alive.”
Jessie turned, bringing up his flashlight as Helena raised hers, pressing back the shadows where a dozen vampires stood not five yards away. Their eyes glittered brightly in the twin beams of the hand torches, and they were all smiling.
The fiend in charge of the group, the tallest and handsomest of the lot, was Count Slavek, the bloodsucker who had almost illegally bitten Renee Cuyler only a brief night or two ago.
“The bats we just heard—” Jessie began.
“Us,” Slavek said.
“Jessie?” Helena asked. “What are they going to do with us?”
“Nothing,” the detective said. Slavek laughed.
Jessie said, “Unless you want to be converted to the life of the undead, a vampire can’t touch you, Helena. That’s the law.”
“Ah,” Slavek said, “but when all is said and done, the law is nothing but a piece of paper.”
“Ignore that piece of paper, and see what happens to you,” Jessie said. “An official stake straight through the heart, a quick conversion to a pile of lifeless ashes.”
Slavek took a step forward; his comrades followed after him in a sussuration of flowing capes.
“Slavek, it isn’t worth breaking the law over someone like Renee Cuyler, especially when I was right and you were wrong.”
Slavek advanced another step.
The pale-faced bloodsuckers behind him spread out on both sides, in a semi-circle. They all leered at Helena.
“This hasn’t anything whatsoever to do with Renee Cuyler,” Count Slavek said, “Oh, she was a tasty little piece, to be sure. But the world is just full of tasty little pieces—like your Helena, for example, who is one of the tastiest little pieces I’ve ever seen, bar none.” He grinned wickedly at her.
“Oh, fuck off,” Helena said.
Slavek winced; male vampires were not accustomed, in their male chauvinistic society, to hearing such talk from women. He looked back at Jessie, trying to regain his composure, and he said, “I would not nurture any grudge because of Renee Cuyler. She was a little bit empty-headed, anyway. You understand, I prefer empty-headed wenches to your average smart-assed college girl…. But I have my limits: a minimum IQ of 105 being the bottom of those limits; a top IQ of 120 being the other end. Anyway, Blake, this is no private vendetta.”
“Then, what—”
“I’ve been sent here to stop the three of you from messing around in the Tesserax affair. Your hell hound companion will be restrained through the talents of several sorcerers who have been watching you since you first entered the cemetery.”
“I knew it!” Helena exclaimed.
“Meanwhile, both you and your lady friend will be—ah, converted to the life of the undead,” Slavek finished. “And may I say, I am going to enjoy munching on this gorgeous child’s neck—and, later, on other things which also appear delectable indeed.”
“Jessie, stop them,” Helena said, from the other side of the open grave.
Jessie said, “Run!”
Chapter Twelve
Blake had broken the collapsible shovel into two pieces, and now he used these to divert Count Slavek’s attention. He threw the spade section at Slavek’s face, then tossed the handle hard at his ankles. As the vampire put up his arms to ward off the blade, he stepped backwards and got his legs tangled hopelessly in the whirling handle. He cried out, stumbled clumsily to the side, fell onto his back, thoroughly confusing his fanged comrades..
Jessie turned as soon as he had thrown the second piece of shovel, not waiting to see what it would do. Without bothering to scoop up his flashlight, he leaped across the open grave, grabbed Helena’s hand and started running—not in any planned direction, just away.
Brutus ran ahead of them, taking enormous strides, leading them purposefully toward the main cemetery gate. He could have headed for one of the walls and phased right through, Jessie knew, but he had chosen to stay with them. Jessie remembered that it had been the hell hound’s touch which had changed him from stone to flesh in the sculpture garden at Millennium City…