The Last Vampire Part 14

She gave Miriam a careful look. "How is that?"

"With guns."

"We are faster than their hands. We can step out of the way before they pull the trigger. I've done it myself now and again."

"These guns leave you no place to go. They spread a ma.s.s of tiny bullets. Keepers up there are being torn apart. The humans are coming for that book." She smiled. "Let me take it."

"I will not. You're a pervert, Miriam. You're unclean."

"If they get your book, our whole world will be in danger."

"They will not get our book."

"They will be here in minutes. And they will get it."

"There have been three hundred conclaves in this place. My grandfather built it when the humans were covered with hair."

"May those days live in memory."

"They were sour. The new ones now are much sweeter."

Horribly close, there came the roar of gunfire. It was so close that the flash was faintly visible.

"We have to get out. We cannot waste another minute."

"What is a minute or a hundred years? You have fallen from your n.o.bility, Miriam. Everybody says it. I remember you in linen, how tall you were, your limbs like gold."

"That memory is three thousand years old, Julia! This is now, and the humans are not armed with bronze daggers. Don't you understand that they're tearing the Keepers apart with their guns?"

"They will become lost. The labyrinth is more cunning than their minds can understand."

"That was true a hundred years ago. But now they have sonar and digital maps and handheld locators. And they're trained to kill us. They have killed all of Asia, and they have their Book of Names."

"Asia is far away."

"It's an airplane flight! I was in Bangkok a few days ago."

"You have the restless soul of a human, always traipsing about."

Miriam heard human voices. They would be here in moments. "Do you not think it strange that you alone are here at the appointed time? Where are the others? Can you explain it?"

"Don't cross-question me. All will unfold in its course."

"Then why hasn't it? What's wrong?"

"What has changed to prevent the conclave? Nothing."

"Everything has changed."

"A few humans cannot change the course of the world."

Miriam saw the humans creeping among the shadows ahead, four of them.

"It's lit," the tall, powerful one said. He walked into the gray glow from the ancient batteries. Humans had found some of the Keepers' batteries in the Valley of the Euphrates some years ago. They were still trying to understand how the ancients could have had electricity.

"Lookit - a power line!"

Discreetly, Miriam drew Julia into a pool of shadow. The humans were now at the far end of the chamber, perhaps a hundred yards away.

"How do you work the lights?" she whispered to Julia.

"They're always on during conclave. That's the rule."

"Julia, there is no conclave. We're all being killed. Turn out the lights."

Julia broke away from her, strode out into the center of the chamber. For a moment, the humans froze. They drew closer together.

"Julia!"

"Miriam, they're only -"

There came clicking noises, ominous, echoing. Only seconds remained. "Julia, run!"

Julia turned to her. Her smile said that she found her friend of old times pitiful.

The tall human raised his weapon, followed by the others. Miriam watched his face, the careful sculpture of it, the hard fury of the eyes.

The guns blasted - and Miriam herself felt a hot slash of pain along her exposed hip. Just a few shots had filled the entire s.p.a.ce with bullets - all this huge area!

Then she saw Julia, who still stood, who still held the all-important book. Julia, pouring blood, placed the book beside her on the ground. She sat then, a dark and b.l.o.o.d.y Venus beside a still-ringing stalagmite. Again the guns rang out, and this time her head went bouncing off her neck. On its face Miriam saw an expression of mild curiosity, nothing more than that.

"There's another one," a voice said. "Over there - that shadow behind the stalagmite. That's a vampire."

Miriam must not waste another instant. But the book - it was lying beside the torn ruins of Julia. It was only a few cubits away, but right in their line of fire.

It was deep brown, its cover an ancient, profoundly aged human skin. On its cover was the Keeper's ancient symbol of balanced nature and balanced rule, known to humans as the ankh. The humans looked toward it, too.

She had to reach it, she had to get it. But first, she must turn off these d.a.m.n lights. The copper wires were set on insulators a few feet above her head. She knew that these batteries were very, very different from what the humans had, that they drew their energy from the earth itself, and they were powerful.

To kill the lights, she had to stand up in full view, reach overhead, and yank a wire loose. The electricity would jolt her. If she wasn't fast enough, or could not let go of the power line, she would be burned inside - an injury that would take weeks to mend. In moments they would be upon her, though, and she would end up in their sights.

She was well up behind one of the stalagmites, but they nevertheless fired, all together, the roar of their guns causing the chamber to resound like the interior of a bell. She felt no injury.

The leader said, "Spread out," in a resonant, icy voice.

They came closer to her, led by their monster. His face was so determined, so truly terrible in the hate that was written across it, that she was compelled to think that his emotions were almost full-circle. This human loathed the Keepers so much that he nearly loved them. She would not forget this.

"We need to angle off that wall," he said, "it's pressed itself against the back of the stalagmite."

He spoke with detachment. Well, she also was professional. She reached up to the humming wire. Her fingers paused, hesitating. But this was no act of ritual possession. She curled them, closing them on the wire.

There was a buzzing sound and a choked, sizzling cry, and the lights went out. "s.h.i.+t," Bocage said.

Paul went down on his hands and knees. "The book," he whispered.

"Forget the d.a.m.n book; get some light in here," Becky hissed.

"Get the goggles - " Des Roches said.

There was no time, and Paul knew it. "Cover me," he said as he moved off toward the book.

"How?" Bocage asked.

He crawled two, three feet, then five, then ten. He could hear them putting on their goggles. They mustn't use the infrared floods. Vampires could see into the infrared.

Then he felt it. He felt the book's smooth surface and grasped it. But then he knew that other hands also had it, another hand was grasping it, too.

She was there, face-to-face with him, but he could see nothing. He could smell her, though - not the stink of the vampire but a scent unlike any he had ever smelled before, rich and complicated and s.e.xy as h.e.l.l.

When she growled - as vampires did - he thought that it was the gentlest and yet most lethal sound he had ever heard. She was stronger, he knew that, but he didn't intend to let go of that book. "I know you can understand me," he said.

There was only breathing in reply, breathing like the soft and edgy flutter of a swarm of b.u.t.terflies. He thought, She's scared, too - a vampire that knows how to be afraid She's scared, too - a vampire that knows how to be afraid.

She yanked the book right out of his hands. Instantly, he dove at her, slammed into her, felt the book clatter to the ground. Again she growled, this time with a mixture of surprise and raw fury that made him think that he would shortly die.

He tried to get his fingers around her neck, to choke her, to try to close off that crucial blood flow.

He sensed somebody coming up from behind. Then Becky was with him, grabbing at the creature's arms, trying to throw it off balance.

The vampire's neck felt like steel. He couldn't manage to throttle the creature, and his hands were strong. He struggled, getting closer, seeing the face before him, a glowing moon in the darkness, smelling the sweat of a woman and - perfume. Yes, it was perfumed, this one. What in d.a.m.n h.e.l.l was going on here.

"Get a light! A light!"

In the split of an instant, the vampire was gone. Des Roches and Bocage appeared. As Paul looked across the empty cave floor, a wave of rage and frustration swept through him. He'd lost the d.a.m.n book! This meant years more work, hundreds of lives.

Then Becky's hand came into his, her cool hand. A flashlight glowed, and he saw in that glow her s.h.i.+ning, triumphant eyes. She gave him the book.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n," he said, "good G.o.d d.a.m.n."

She moved toward him, her lips parting, her eyes steady and strong.

There was no time - not here, not now. "We can get it," he said, breaking away.

"It's gone," Bocage said.

Paul could not accept that. He turned; he went a few steps into the deadly blackness.

"Paul! Paul, no!"

He went on.

TEN.

The Traveler As he ran along a low, narrow corridor, he flashed his light from time to time, making sure that he hadn't pa.s.sed any side entrances and that he wasn't about to hit a wall. He did not think about the fact that he was a man alone penetrating into a lair that was crawling with the creatures. That female - he had never encountered anything like that. It had been clean and perfumed. It had felt soft and smooth, if immensely strong. He had not seen the face, but he knew that there had been beauty, perhaps great beauty. Its scent still lingered: Arpege and womanhood. Its touch had inflamed him even as it had made his flesh crawl. He wanted to bathe, to get its smell off him . . . and he wanted never to bathe again.

Was it the traveler, still alive after all?

He knew that the safety of the book was everything, but he also had to kill this vampire. He had never wanted to kill a vampire so much, not in all the years he'd been at it. This thing could walk the streets without a problem. The idea of vampires that could function in the human world was horrifying.

He came to a T - blank wall ahead, a pa.s.sage to the right sloping up, another to the left sloping down.

He stopped, shone his flashlight first in one direction and then the other. Far away he heard Becky. "Paul! Paul!" Paul!"

He heard something in her voice that was tender. But she was a professional killer, for G.o.d's sake. What man could romance a woman like that?

"Paaaaul!"

Her fear for him was heartrending. But he could not answer, dared not. They would have to do their best to follow. Waiting for them to catch up would cost at least two minutes, and there were no minutes available at all just now.

He listened ahead, closing his eyes and cupping his hands behind his ears. The rising pa.s.sage was silent. But not the descending - down there he heard all sorts of noises - murmurs, scuffling sounds, the low thutter of vampire calls.

He hesitated only long enough to make certain that his gun had a fresh clip and there were still more in the rucksack that Raynard had given him. Three more, to be exact.

It was a lovely gun, the way it tore the things apart. His hand on its comforting b.u.t.t, he stepped into the downward pa.s.sage. The descent was steep. Soon, his flashlight was revealing carved inscriptions in Latin here and there on the walls. This tunnel must be very old indeed. The Arenes de Lutece, where the Romans had held bearbaiting contests, could not be far overhead. Maybe they had quarried the stone for it here. But he did not think so. There was something too perfect about the way these walls were made. As old as it all appeared, every line was dead straight.

He was in a vampire place, something made by them in some uncountably ancient time. When this place was made, mankind must have been - well, maybe still living in caves.

What did it mean?

If they had been advanced enough to make this, they must have ruled the world then, in the deep long ago. The implications for human life were chilling. Anything could be true - they could even have bred us the same way that we breed cattle.

Fear kept rising, and he kept pus.h.i.+ng it down. But what if he couldn't win? What if they had reserves of power that he had never imagined?

He tried to be philosophical. If he died here, he died here. At least he'd take some of them with him.

And then - was that somebody breathing?

He stopped, listened. No, it was nothing, just the wind in the halls, or far-off street noise. He started off again.

One of them appeared ahead of him, leaping, screaming, a blur of darkness and fury. He fired, then fired again and again, until it exploded along the corridor with a series of wet splats.

He flicked on his light. He'd expected to see a ma.s.s of carnage, a flowing river of blood. But there wasn't all that much blood. And then he saw a bit of fur, gray, and he realized that the light had played a trick on him. He'd shot at the looming shadow of a rat.