Throat (47 page)

I kissed him again.

“You too.”

I closed and locked the steel mesh behind me as we had
planned and ran out of the bunker. Rushed to the top of the tower and took a 360-degree walk around the roof. What Sagan called position one. The only point higher was the steel spike with the blinking red airplane beacon that rose about thirty feet above my head.

I waved into the Webcam.

“Can you see me?”

“Yeah.” Sagan’s voice came through sounding scratchy. “Anything out there?”

“Nothing yet.”

I looked for the bunker but couldn’t see him.… He was too far inside.

“I’m looking at the cams,” Sagan said. “So far just a lot of greenish-looking metal and trees.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Just took an Advil. I’ll live. Remember, don’t let them catch you in a place where all of them can get at you at once. Do what we talked about to keep them separated. Don’t forget if they come from the—”

“I remember, I remember.”

I reached down and yanked the pull cord and the generator roared to life. The
pockata pockata
rhythm was kind of comforting. I didn’t really need it anymore—everything had a full charge—but I wanted to do two things—confuse the vampires’ sensitive ears, but mostly send a message:

Here I am. Come and get me
.

I strapped on a carpenter’s belt full of tool caddies and Velcro pouches. We had figured it was best to travel light, so the biggest weapon I carried in it was the handheld angle grinder with the diamond cutting wheel.

I ran to the edge of the roof and threw my body out into space. I landed on the long iron arm that once held rocket engines over the blast shield far below. Sagan called the arm a gantry. This was position two.

I ran to the middle of the gantry and grabbed the chain saw and cranked it—it took several pulls, then finally caught. I gave the trigger a bunch of angry squeezes, filling the forest with a hostile ripping sound.

I lowered the idling chain saw over the railing on its nylon rope, leaving it dangling in midair. I touched the rope to stop the chain saw swinging, then ran back to the tower.

“Okay,” I said into the headset mike. “Everything’s ready.”

Sagan swore.

“What! What is it?”

“Thought I saw something. But now I don’t see it.”

I started breathing again. “Hey … Sagan … if we get through this …”

“When we get through this.”

“I want to …”

I paused. Squinted into the gloom. My heart fluttered.
Yes
. Six
balls of lavender light were moving through the woods, coming fast, one a little ways out in front of the others.

“Emma!” Sagan said. “You there?”

“I can see them!” I said. “I can see them coming! They’ve taken the bait. They’re moving in a straight line from the observatory.”

“Be ready to move. What are they doing now?”

“Heading right for the meadow.”

Now the vampires were beginning to spread out. I wondered if Wirtz was the one out in front, but something told me it could be the girl, Lilli. She had been the least affected by the solar image.

The first lavender ball paused at the edge of the meadow as if expecting something nasty.

“Where are they?” Sagan said.

“They’re … they’re at the edge of the minefield … but now they’re stopping,” I said. “Almost like they know it’s dangerous. Come on. Come on! What’s holding you up!”

Two of the lavender figures came up behind the first, while the others spread wide, as if looking for a way around.

No! Come on, do it. Do it. Please
.

Suddenly they were moving forward again, really flying, running straight across the secret meadow.

“They’re running through it!” I said into the mike. “But nothing … nothing’s happening! It’s not even slowing them down!”

The headset crackled over Sagan’s swearing.

“Get out of there, Emma! Get out of there now!”

The
Verloren
were taking shape as they left the clearing and came down the long slope toward the bunker. I could see them as distinct figures now. I was pretty sure it was the female up front; she was moving more gracefully than the others. Seemed to have more purpose.

I felt my teeth come together with a click, my face tightening. This was it. It was real.

I thought of Papi lying in his hospital bed. One of the few things he ever said about war.

In war there is only the fear and what it does to you
, Enkelin.
If you cannot do this brutal thing, then it will be done to you. It’s not fair. There is no fair. It is only who is still standing at the end. Time for fair … that is later
.

I crouched behind a stanchion, trying to block as much of my own feeble glow as possible.

You can do this
, I told myself.

The glowing figures broke through the last of the trees and approached the bunker. They paused near the entrance and stood as a group as if debating something.
Wanting to look inside
.

“What is it?” Sagan said.

I touched the headset. “Shhh! They’ll hear you!”

I could see the figures gesturing, pointing.
Something there
. They crowded around the entrance to the bunker, looking. My heart pinged in my ears.

I lowered myself to a little platform at the edge of the feral room with the desk, ready to drop to the next catwalk, thirty feet below.…

The vampires moved away from the bunker, swarming toward the base of the test stand. I pulled myself back up to the gantry, breathing rapidly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said into the mike. “They were at the entrance to the bunker. Now they’re coming toward the tower.”

I could hear voices: the
Verloren
calling out to one another; I couldn’t understand the words. It was German, some kind of signal.

“I can see them!” Sagan said. “Clustered around the eastern side of the tower, but still on the ground. Pointing up.”

I heard Wirtz’s deep voice: “
Links. Rechts. Ausschwaermen.
” Three of the figures peeled away to my left, two of the others to my right.

“Whisper if you have to,” I said. “It looks like they’re splitting up, each taking a section of the tower.”

“Maybe,” Sagan said. “One of them … yeah, he’s starting to climb the east face!”

“Is it the stocky guy? Bastien?”

“Can’t tell.”

I heard the climber curse. He had just gotten tangled in some of the noisemakers I had strung at odd angles all around the tower. I could hear him angrily tearing at them, then the noise stopped.

I ran back to the main body of the tower and launched myself over the edge, dropping to one of the smaller catwalks, landing as lightly as I could.

I touched the mike on the headset. “Position three. Where is he?”

“Climbing again,” Sagan said. “About a quarter of the way up but coming at an angle …”

“I see him.”

It was Bastien, all right. Rather than leaping, the burly vampire was climbing hand over hand, grabbing anything he could hold on to and throwing himself higher. A chill shot through my chest. If he managed to get those big mitts on me … I shook away the thought and reminded myself that I knew the tower a lot better than he did.

“This way!” Bastien shouted.

I swung over the edge of the catwalk and clung beneath it as the vampire scrambled up the side of the tower like an enormous crab. He got closer and closer while I felt my heart pound, waiting for the best moment to let go. The
Verloren
passed not thirty feet
away, scuttling toward the top of the tower. I waited a few more seconds to be sure he was gone, then climbed back up onto the catwalk.

Sagan buzzed in my ear. “Two more.”

I looked down. The two other vampires below were on the move now: it was the guys who looked like brothers. They called back and forth to one another, almost appearing to run in midair as they jumped from the ground and started bounding up the tower in the same general direction the stocky
Verloren
had taken.

“I see them,” I said.

“And there are two others coming up the opposite side,” Sagan said. “Except they’re using the stairs.”

“Where is Wirtz?” I said.

“None of them are him. I’ve lost him.”

No time to think about that right now. The brothers were climbing the tower diagonally, circling it the way stone stairs wrap around a ziggurat, higher and higher.

Closer and closer
.

The earpiece coughed.

“Hey, you there?” Sagan said.

“Here!” one of the brothers called. “I see! Look! Her
Glühe
!”

My glow. He’s seen my glow
.

“Gotta go!” I said, and ran back to the place where the catwalk joined the tower and scrunched behind a thick support column. Gooseflesh raced over my arms.
Now. It’s happening now
.

The
Verloren
who had seen me dropped to the catwalk not twenty feet away, smiling.

“This is not a very good hiding place,
Mädchen,
” he said, taking a step toward me. Pointing at my tool belt. “So, are you planning on building something?”

I just looked at him.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. After I am finished with you, you will want to talk. Assuming you can still speak.”

The
Verloren
dropped his shoulder and sprang.

I flipped a switch on the squat yellow cube I was standing on and raised the sandblaster’s spray nozzle. The vampire’s eyes went wide with shock.

“
Scheisse—!
”

I squeezed the trigger. A scouring mix of sand and water hit the
Verloren
dead in the face from point-blank range.

He screamed and was knocked back, throwing his hands up to cover his blistered eyes. I charged after him, dragging the sandblaster bouncing and clanging, raking his face and arms mercilessly. The vampire staggered backward. I kept coming, afraid to let up for a second, hammering him with the skin-peeling spray until he was driven to the end of the catwalk.

Now he had nowhere to go unless it was over the side. The vampire gathered himself and charged again, bellowing in blind rage. I sidestepped him and squeezed the trigger. This time he got a full blast of the lethal sand right in the ear. The
Verloren
collapsed against the railing, holding his head and moaning, legs starting to buckle.

Something moved behind me. I swung the sprayer around—not fast enough; the second brother crashed into me, throwing me against the railing. I let out a yelp of fear and pain as my back bent over the side. The
Verloren
swore and drove his hands into my stomach; only my grip on the hose and the weight of the sandblaster kept me from plunging over.

I twined my legs through the catwalk and hung on, fighting to aim the sprayer, but the vampire was too close—the nozzle was pointing straight up between us, jetting harmlessly in the air.

We fought over the sandblaster nozzle, spitting and cursing.
The vampire was taller than me and stronger. He leaned in hard, pushing me backward even as he pulled against the sprayer. The tools in my tool belt were cutting into my stomach, but I was afraid to let go of the sprayer to try to get to them.

Now the top half of my body was almost horizontal, hanging over nothing but fifty feet of dead space. The fall wouldn’t kill me, but the
Verloren
would as I lay there stunned and helpless.

I started to slip, one foot coming free.…

The vampire leered triumphantly, his face so close, I could see up his nose.

“Goodbye,
Schlampe.
”

Up his nose
.

I stopped trying to pull back on the sprayer and instead shoved it against the vampire’s muscular chest—jammed the sandblaster’s nozzle right beneath his flaring nostrils.

Squeezed the trigger.

The
Verloren
’s eyes widened in horrified surprise as sand exploded up his sinuses at 6,500 pounds per square inch. For a moment it seemed as if every square inch of his face bulged; his eyes almost came out of their sockets and his skin flooded with purple.

The vampire let go of the sprayer and staggered backward, groaning. He put his hands to his face and blood gushed violently from between his fingers. I couldn’t move, just stood there against the railing watching in shock. The vampire looked at me, but I could tell he wasn’t seeing me. He trembled all over, stumbled forward a couple of steps, and fell at my feet, lying still.

I still had my hand on the trigger of the sprayer, scouring nothing but the air. I let off the trigger and heard my ragged breathing. The vampire wasn’t moving.

I swung around wildly, looking for his brother
Verloren
.

Nothing. He was gone.

*    *    *

I looked up. Above me was a small metal door with a platform about ten feet over my head. The door was closed, but I had already battered the lock. I threw down the sprayer nozzle and leapt up to the platform and hauled myself inside, slamming the door behind me. I jammed an iron bar we had placed there across the door and sank to my knees, still breathing hard and trying not to cry.