"There's an old Spanish proverb that says: 'an ounce of blood is worth a pound of friendship.'"
"And an old Italian proverb," Theresa retorted, "says: 'blood alone moves the wheels of history.'"
I shook my head. "You don't strengthen your case by quoting Benito Mussolini."
"But think of all the good he could do with it!"
"Mussolini?"
"Dr. Pipt!" She got up and wandered around the couch. "The man is a genius! The advances he's made in genetics, cloning, nanobiotics—"
"It is a very impressive resume," I said, "but it also underlines the inherent dangers of turning over something that could be so potently misused and exploited. I don't know this Dr. Pipt well enough to trust him with my genetic material."
"He's a good man!"
"I can understand your enthusiasm; he gave you a body. But I've got to wonder: whose body? And how did he obtain it? All I know about this guy is, he's stolen your—er—head from the people I had entrusted it to—"
"For the right reasons!"
"If it's so obvious that he was doing the right thing, why didn't he ask? If he's such a humanitarian, why isn't he sharing his medical breakthroughs with the rest of the world? And I confess to certain qualms about handing over tissue to a man who gets his jollies leaving disembodied hearts on other people's doorsteps."
"Well, if you would come with me, I could introduce him to you. You could get to know him. Decide for yourself."
I got up from the love seat. "I would love to meet this guy-whose-name-sounds-oh-so-familiar-but-I-just-can't-seem-to-place-it. But not right now. I've got major business brewing in New York this week. And I'm getting married—"
"Married?"
"You seem surprised."
She waved her hand dismissively, all nonchalance now. "Just that there's an old adage: 'Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?'"
I felt my eyes narrow. "I'm not sure I like an analogy that compares my fiancée to a cow."
"Or, for that matter," she said, ignoring my response, "why settle for milk when you can have cream?"
"Cream?"
"Whipped cream . . ." She licked her lips.
I was torn between the urge to scowl and to outright laugh in her face. "Look, the point—which we are rapidly digressing from—is that I am very busy right now. Under the circumstances, I'd prefer to get this Pipt's address and go visit him on my own terms, once things are all quiet on the eastern front."
She turned and her face twisted into a parody of a smile. "I can't wait that long."
"Who can't wait?"
"He's getting really old. His life may be measured in months or even weeks. None of us expect him to see next Christmas. He needs your blood!"
I stared at her. Theresa Kellerman had evinced the qualities of a true sociopath on our last encounter but she wasn't that good a liar. And she knew it.
"All right," she said after a moment and tugged at her sleeve as she walked back toward me. She stripped the glove from her left arm, exposing her hand and wrist. She held it before my face and wiggled her fingers. "This is why I can't wait."
Her skin was mottled and discolored, the fingers bruised and swollen. Then I caught a whiff of what the heavy perfume had been trying to mask.
The stink of putrefaction.
"Gangrene?" I asked.
She snorted. "No. Or maybe yes. I always thought gangrene was the process of death in living tissue. If a limb is already dead . . ." She shrugged.
"But a transplant—"
"Do you mean from a living donor?" She smiled a ghastly smile. "My dear Christopher, I thought you would be more squeamish about the medical ethics involved. Besides, my flesh from the neck up remained well preserved without the assistance of the good doctor's nanobots. It seemed logical that the transplantation would work well with a million tiny machines working day and night to keep my tissues oxygenated and under constant repair."
She peeled off the other glove with greater difficulty; the fingers of her left hand were noticeably clumsy. Her right hand was black—not with advanced necrosis but with the pigmentation that denoted a Negroid donor. "This arm was harvested more quickly and attached more recently. It will last longer but, eventually, it will need to be replaced, too." She ran those dark fingers over the ridges of the even darker straps girdling her torso. "If we had time I could show you a woman who epitomizes the melting-pot concept of America. The stitchwork is very fine; nothing like those old black-and-white horror movies on the late show."
"My blood," I said. And stopped. I didn't know what to say. Or, rather, I couldn't quite figure out how to say it.
"It brought me back from the dead, the first time. Kept me alive from the neck up, upon the second. I believe it could keep my body from rotting under me and sending me back to the operating room again and again and again and—"
Deirdre walked back into the living room and Theresa immediately composed herself. "Did I miss something?"
Theresa turned away and pulled her gloves back on. "I have to be going. Will you spare a little for my sake? Or should I go back to Pipt and see if a living transplant works a lot better?"
I ignored the implied threat. "I could give you a transfusion right here and now. No need to go back home and do it."
She shook her head but kept her back to us. "Not now. Not like this." Her voice was unsteady. "My body isn't quite . . . right. At the moment. I wouldn't want to 'preserve' it in its current state."
Little alarm bells went off in the back of my mind but they became distant as she turned and smiled. "I'll have to come back, then," she said as if finding new resolve. "Or hold out for a few more weeks until you can come and visit us on terms that you are comfortable with."
"Theresa, I am sorry—"
Her smile grew in intensity. "How quickly you've forgotten, Christopher. Call me 'T.'"
"I wish—"
"I do have to go, now. I must return the boat, check in at the airport, and return the rental car."
I frowned. "There are no commercial flights out until six a.m."
"Private jet. Will you walk me to the boat? You could at least do that. For old times."
I wasn't sure what old times she was referring to but I nodded.
"We'll both walk you," Deirdre said.
"There's no need to go to all the trouble."
"Don't worry, honey. As long as Chris is armed, I'll hang back at a discreet distance. You can whisper all the endearments you like as long as I can keep him in a fifteen-foot line of sight."
Theresa looked back at me. "I must say, Chris, your fiancée is either very open-minded or very secure in your relationship."
"Uh, Deirdre is not my fiancée."
Theresa's eyes widened. She looked over at my Security Chief. She looked back at me. "Really? That's . . . interesting . . ."
"Isn't it?" Deirdre opined. She turned to me. "Check your clip."
I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster. "How many times do I have to tell you, it's not a clip, it's a magazine. Clips are loads for the long bores."
"Long bores, huh? Well, that would be you."
I ignored that but ejected and reinserted the ammo magazine so she wouldn't keep on. Deirdre picked up her shotgun as we headed out the door.
Outside, the air smelled fresh and clean, washed clear by the showers of the morning before. The combined stench of T's perfume and decay evaporated but I felt a shiver as her black-clad body disappeared in the darkness, leaving her head to seemingly float through the night like a glimmering apparition.
"So, who is the lucky lady?" Theresa asked over her invisible shoulder.
"How about an exchange of information? I'll give you a name if you give me an address."
In spite of my attempts to match her stride, she still managed to walk just ahead of me. "I'm sure the doctor will send you directions shortly."
"Tell him to send it snail mail; I seem to be having trouble with my ISP." We reached the end of the front lawn and she started down the stairs.
I hurried to catch up. One flight down she slowed and leaned back against me as I matched her pace. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to persuade you to come with me?" she murmured suggestively.
Maybe her brain had starved for oxygen: that approach hadn't worked back when she still had her original body. And, while I might confess to one or two mild kinks in the boudoir, borrowed, putrefying flesh just sort of kills my amorous inclinations.
"The steps are kind of slippery with the night dew," Deirdre called down. "You might want to use the handrail."
Theresa took the hint and hurried down the stairs. Mostly to annoy my Chief of Security, I hurried after her.
The boat moored next to the dock was larger than I expected, certainly larger than a lone individual required for crossing the river for a hasty visit. Suki and her entourage had been lucky: there was plenty of space aboard for them and room to spare, as well. The craft was twin-hulled for stability and that gave her the added advantage of a shallow draft, allowing her to berth so close to the river's bank. A tarp covered a pile of something amidships and I remembered our visitors' luggage. It looked like Suki and Co. had left some of their gear behind. Which meant Deirdre and I would probably have to hump it all up the stairs if Theresa was in as big of a hurry to depart as she claimed.
The problem was the tarp covered a big pile.
Worse, the pile was getting bigger.
The tarp rose into the air until it was as tall as a man standing erect.
And it didn't stop there!
"Chris!" Deirdre bellowed. "Get back!"
Like to where I once belonged and you can call me Jojo: I moonwalked back up three steps as the tarp fell away and I looked up at a vaguely man-shaped silhouette. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone's love child, bottle-fed on steroids and beaten daily with an ugly stick for thirty-some-odd years . . .
This thing might have been his scarier, older brother.
"Fall back to the house and I'll cover you!"
"Nothin' doin', Red," I growled as I squeezed past her and grabbed her belt from behind. "We're gonna run this like a three-legged race!"
She twisted and shoved me up to the top of the first landing. "Then don't slow me down! Run!"
We ran but I couldn't keep from looking back. As it stepped over the side of the boat, the dock settled low in the water as if the creature weighed a ton.
"What the hell is that?" I asked as we turned onto the second landing and started up the final flight of stairs.
"It came here on that psychopathic bitch's boat," Deirdre grunted at my hip. "She kept it hidden until she could lure you down to the dock. That means it's something very bad!"
"That's it," I puffed, "she's officially off the guest list for the wedding."
The thing was on the stairs now, bounding up toward us, taking three steps at a time. The wooden treads cracked like gunfire beneath its ponderous feet.
I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster and fired a couple of rounds into the air.
"What are you doing? It's behind us, not above us!"
"Thought I'd let Suki know company was coming." We reached the top and nearly stumbled making the transition to softer ground. "Besides, shooting it might make it mad."
"Let's test that theory." She turned, shoving me behind her, and pumped a shell into the chamber. "Stop or I'll shoot!" she bellowed as the thing reached the top of the stairs.
The creature stopped and you could see the fear reflected in its eyes—the fear on our faces, that is. It wasn't hesitating; it was merely posing for effect, giving us a chance to really see what we were up against.
Mary Shelley's description of the creature in her magnum opus remarked upon "its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity . . . the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I (Victor Frankenstein) had given life."
This thing was bigger and uglier. It wore clothing of sorts, pants and a shirt of some gray canvas material. Its color and the creature's misshapen form were such as to make it impossible to discern where one left off and the other began.
Then it opened its mouth and displayed a pair of three-and-a-half-inch fangs.
"Holy shit!" I cried. "Frankenstein meets Dracula!"
Deirdre discharged the shotgun and the phosphorus load dazzled us with its actinic, bright flash. As my eyes recovered I could see patches of the thing's bare flesh where the ragged shirt had burned away to reveal a crazy quilt of stitch lines and multihued patches of skin. It casually swatted at peppered patches of smoldering hide as if the fiery pellets were mosquitolike annoyances.
She jacked another shell into the breech but the monster was upon her in two quick bounds and closed its massive hands around the smoking barrel. I saw the muscles bunch in her arms as she tried to twist the weapon out of its gray-green grasp.
"Guess . . . what?" it intoned in a deep funereal voice.
"Uh," she said. "Hulk smash?"
It shook its great, blocky head. "Hulk . . . splash!" And flicked the shotgun to the side so fast that Deirdre didn't have time to let go. She was suddenly airborne and disappeared over the edge of the bluff before she could even scream.
"Crap!" I said, hoping that saying the word would keep me from doing it. I turned and ran for the house as fast as I could.
It let me get there first.
I slammed the door behind me, turned the bolt and knob locks, and slid the restraint chain into position with a fumbled flourish. Technically, it was all unnecessary as vampires cannot cross a private threshold without an invitation—even if the door is wide open. But I wasn't thinking rationally. Something that big and that hideous was bad enough. The fact that it possessed a quick wit and matching reflexes suggested that it was even more dangerous than it looked.
Maybe it was pen pals with Madame LeClaire, as well.
I closed my eyes and tried to think past my panic: Deirdre was still out there and, even if she survived the fall with minor injuries, the thing was still between her and sanctuary. How could I help her? "I . . . hate . . . monsters," I sighed.
"Well, you're not always so lovable, yourself," Suki said from behind me.
I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder. She was standing in the doorway wearing an abbreviated silk robe. Her hair was damp and she was barefoot.
"I took a quick shower," she said in answer to the question in my eyes. "I thought I heard some kind of racket. Where's Deirdre?"
"In the river, I hope. Where's your security goon squad?"
As if in answer to my question, Lance came hurtling through the glass window adjacent to the front door like—well—a lance.
Suki's face changed.
I had seen her in inhuman form before, but only as a cat. Some Japanese vampires can manifest in feline form, the extra tail being the one characteristic that tends to separate them from the rest of the breeds. But this was different. Asian vampires have a more demonic aspect in their arousal state. Her face contorted into something resembling an ancient ceremonial mask with teeth and tusks and eyes that glowed like fanned embers. Her fingernails grew into curved talons and her robe parted to reveal a Picasso-like distortion of the human form.
"Who dares?" she roared in a voice that was suddenly an octave below my own. "Who attacks my human servant?"
I was trying to think of an abbreviated response when the other nightmare voice chuckled just outside the door. "Little pig, little pig, let me in . . ." it singsonged.
Beau walked into the room wearing a shoulder rig with a handgun that would've made Detective Harry Callahan envious. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Disney's Fangtasia," I wheezed. "And you're gonna need a bigger gun."
"How many?" Suki growled.
"Uh, one." I didn't count Theresa. Hell, the thing out there could have brought a pack of rabid Dobermans and I wouldn't have counted them, either.
"Then why are we standing here?" She ran across the room and leaped through the broken window.
"Save some for me!" Beau yelled as he made a detour to the door in order to follow. He should have had his weapon out before he opened the door. That way he might have been ready when the gigantic arm with camo-colored skin reached in and the huge gray-green hand closed around his face. Then again maybe nothing would have made him ready enough: the hand twitched and there was an audible crunch as Beau's skull imploded. As he dropped, I pointed the Glock at the mismatched mass in the doorway and emptied the magazine.
It must have done some damage. The creature bellowed and hunkered down, turning back to peer in at me as the hammer repeatedly clicked on the empty chamber. Then a guttural but ululating battle cry erupted behind it—someone had been watching way too much Xena. The thing turned around and there was a wet smacking sound that cut the cry off in mid yi-yi-yi.
There was a serious weapons locker in the basement with a bazooka, rocket launcher, and a couple of heavy-caliber machine guns. I was turning in that direction when the monster turned back and began squeezing through the open door.
"Hey," I said, "you can't do that!"
"I can't?" it purred. Purred like a lion, that is.
"I didn't invite you in!"
"File a claim with the grievance committee." It was taking some effort: seven-foot doors do not easily accommodate nine-foot monsters. Still, it would be on top of me before I could reach the basement stairs.
I made it as far as the den, picked up an end table and tore off a sturdy wooden leg. I turned as it crouched to work its way through the interior doorway. As the one arm was momentarily positioned behind him to push against the frame, I darted forward and drove the splintered end of my makeshift stake into the center of its massive chest with all the preternatural strength I could muster.
It should have pulped the creature's heart. Instead, there was a muffled "clank" and the chair leg rebounded in my grasp. The monster paused and waggled a finger at me as if to say "naughty, naughty." I glimpsed the glint of metal through the ruined patch of flesh in the middle of its chest.
There was no way I could get to a weapons locker in time, unlock it, and load something that had a prayer of stopping this thing. If I lured it out and into the cemetery it would only make a puree of The Neighbors. I could blow out the pilot-light in the stove, turn up the gas, let it build up, and blow us all to kingdom come—if the monster was willing to wait around for a half-hour.
Indecision had paralyzed me and now the thing was through the doorway and reaching for me with impossibly long arms. I leaned back and it staggered on its next step forward. A slimy beige band encircled its neck and it grew a second, smaller head beside its own: Deirdre's. Her face and hair were spattered with river mud and a steady trickle of brackish water dribbled behind the monster's massive legs as though her arrival had rendered him suddenly incontinent.
I grinned through my terror. "What kept you?"
"What do you mean, what kept me?" she gritted. "Who invited it in?"
The thing sniffed. "Ah." It grinned. "Smells like team spirit . . ."
Deirdre moved higher on the creature's back and her other arm came up, a hunting knife in her hand. Before I could open my mouth to warn her, she leaned across its huge shoulder and plunged the knife into its chest.
The blade snapped off and dropped to the floor.
"Now that's interesting," she said—just before our Goliath threw himself back against the interior wall. Oak planks covered with plaster snapped like a string of firecrackers and, as it leaned forward, I could see Deirdre was embedded in the wall, pushed halfway through the other side.
I didn't call to her, asking if she was okay. If I couldn't find a way to stop this thing in the next few minutes, none of us were ever going to be okay again. I turned and ran for the library.
Kyle was coming toward me from my study, a pair of automatic weapons in his clenched hands. "Down!" he shouted, and I dropped into a home plate slide across the hardwood floor as the Uzis made a thunderous, tearing sound.
He stepped past me as he emptied his magazines and I scrambled on into the next room. I had no faith that bullets or even grenades could stop our fanged juggernaut. Think! my brain screamed as my gaze darted around the room. How do you stop a two-legged freight train? The bookshelves mocked me. I checked the desk. Letter opener? Scissors? That was it: if I could just get the thing to run through the house with a pair of scissors . . .
The fireplace was cold: not even a winking ember much less a burning brand to wave in its face. I reached for the heavy iron poker just as the Uzis fell silent and Kyle screamed. It was a short scream, terminated by a sickening crunch. I looked back through the doorway just in time to see his bloodied face hurtling in my direction.
I went down with his mangled corpse on top of me. He was wadded up like a crumpled piece of paper and it cost me precious seconds to extricate myself from his wet and tangled remains. I was up on one knee and suddenly looking into the face of my own death. It smiled. "Goodness, gracious," it rumbled in a happy voice, "that was thirsty work! I need a drink . . ." Its cavernous mouth opened and its three-and-a-half-inch fangs actually moved, growing another inch!
Even worse, the daggerlike teeth had the color and reflective qualities of stainless steel, not the ivory hue of natural dental enamel.
This time there was no war cry, just an abbreviated roar as an Oriental lion stuck its demonic head between the monster's massive thighs. It twisted its fantastic visage upwards and its fanged and tusked mouth snapped shut on Frankenvamp's crotch.
The monster stopped and stood very still for a moment. Perhaps it didn't have a heart but it did appear to have balls. "That hurts," it announced conversationally.
As if the rest of its scorched and punctured flesh was mere illusion.
"Then maybe you should lie down!" Deirdre announced from behind it.
The thing suddenly pitched forward and only my enhanced reflexes got me out of the way in time. It crashed, facefirst, into the floor. Deirdre stood just beyond in the den, holding the bunched end of the carpet runner that led from the den to the study. She glared at me. "If we survive this, promise me that I get to kill that body-swapping bitch! But, in the meantime, run!"
I didn't run. Where was I going to go? And while I like to think I was loath to leave Deirdre and Suki, it was more likely I was too pissed off to retreat any more. I started whacking the thing with the heavy iron fireplace poker, smashing it down on Gargantua's shaggy head again and again. "Why? Won't? You? Die?" I grunted, delivering what should have been a killing blow with each syllable.
There was the muffled clanking sound with each blow and the creature's skull retained its general shape despite the repeated punishment.
Then it started to rise.
"The question is," the thing rumbled, "why won't you? I have come to gather data and specimens to assist in researching this issue." It reached down between its legs and pulled Suki away. She came reluctantly and with her toothy maw full. As it threw her through the side window I saw a freshet of gore where its groin used to be. The fluids that dribbled forth looked more like antifreeze than blood.
"Now," it said turning back to me, "we can do this the hard way . . . or the easy way."
I looked at the trail of gore and structural damage behind it. "The hard way?"
It nodded. "Thou sayest."
"Nooooo!" With a banshee wail, Deirdre leapt back onto the aircraft carrier expanse of its shoulders as it reached toward me. She had no weapons and her own superhuman strength was clearly inadequate as she grasped its blocky head and tried to snap its tree-stump neck. I tried to thrust the poker into the wound where its heart should be and was rewarded with another metallic sound as the heavy tool met heavier resistance.
The creature ignored its redheaded jockey and focused on me. That was its first mistake. As it plucked the poker from my shock-numbed grasp, Deirdre's hands flew to the monster's face, curving into fleshy claws just below its heavy, shelflike brow. Faster than it could reach up to grasp her hands, she plunged the index and second fingers of each into the thing's eye sockets.
It roared like a wounded elephant and bucked like a rabid mustang. Deirdre and the poker both went flying. My computer preceded her as she skimmed the top of the desk, both ending up impacted against the outer wall, just below the shattered window. The poker smashed through the heavy glass of the giant aquarium like an elongated bullet and the whole thing exploded. A miniature tsunami of water swept me off my feet and just out of the monster's reach.
But only for a moment.
Kneeling on the newly made beach of rocks and sand and broken glass, I gazed across the tableau of flopping, dying fish and gingerly reached for the red, brown, and white striped Scorpaenidae that some aquarists call a lion-fish. The Pterois volitans looks like a three-dimensional lace doily with candy-cane coloring and fins of gossamer. I picked it up by its fragile tail, careful to avoid the Tinkertoy scaffolding that spread its saillike appendages in multiple directions. The spines were barbed and hollow and capable of delivering painful if not lethal doses of poison and neurotoxins.
I looked up at the monster's blind and bloody face towering above me. "Stay for dinner?" I hissed. "We're having fish!" And I snapped the lion-fish up so that it imbedded in the creature's right cheek like a giant sticky burr.
The monster instinctively swatted at it with its hand which only made matters worse. It howled and I scrambled, pulling myself up to the fireplace and reaching for the glass jar with the heart, sitting on the mantel. I figured a shattered glass jar was better than no weapon at all.
Then I looked a little higher.
I caught the jar one-handed as a battering ram shaped like an arm smashed into the brickwork just below the mantel. The other arm was thrusting forward just inches to my left. "Scraps!" it yelled: "Scraps!"
I danced a complicated two-step, trying to avoid the deadly grab and sweep of those giant limbs as I reached up with my free hand and grasped the hilt of Brother Michael's great sword. The monster cocked its head as the blade came free of the scabbard with a serpentine hiss. A moment later I was knocked on my back and sliding across the floor as one of its flailing arms connected. It was hard to tell whether the broken glass from the aquarium was doing more damage to the hardwood floor or my nether regions in the process. I suspected both would require refinishing if I survived.
The jar was still intact as I'd cradled it to my chest with the fall. The sword clattered off to my right, just out of immediate reach.
The thing cocked its head again, listening for anything that would give away my position or disposition. I lay still, fighting to get my wind back and trying to reach for the sword without making any further sounds. The jar against my chest was a hindrance and the sword was just out of reach. The back of my shirt was in tatters as, I was sure, was my skin past the subcutaneous layer. The floor was already wet so it was tough to tell how much blood I was losing.
"Scraps!" it bellowed again. "I need visuals! Help me or the precious blood is lost!"
If it were possible for this to get any weirder, well I just didn't want to know. I turned my attention to slowly setting the jar down off to my left.
"Scraps! To me! Tick-Tock is winding down . . ."
I twisted just enough to settle the jar a couple of feet to my left and then started twisting to the right to reach for the sword.
There was a sound from the front of the house.
The front door closed.
Then the sound of footfalls as someone followed the trail of destruction toward the library.
It smiled in anticipation of reinforcements, the curve of its fanged lips ghastly on that sightless, ruined face.
I turned further, my fingers brushing the sword's hilt . . . and a small shower of loose coins fell from my pants pocket to chatter and roll across the hardwood floor.
Its head snapped forward and I scrambled amidst the loose change and glass debris to grab the weapon and get out of reach.
"What the hell is going on?" asked the wrong voice as a massive hand clutched my ankle. "Some big boat down by the dock takes off like a bat out of hell as I'm makin' my approach. Then I come up here and find someone's started a party without me. The door's off the hinges, there's a bunch of fresh stiffs littering the joint, and oh shit!"
The Kid had finally noticed the monster.
"Betrayal!" the thing hissed as it turned toward the new arrival, dragging me with it. "Father was right; she could not be relied upon. May each piece of her rot on earth and again in Hell!"
"Hey, it talks!" He produced his ancient .38 police special like a magician's card trick: one moment his hand was empty, the next it was pointing a blunderbuss of a revolver at the fearsome intruder. "Put 'em down and dust, High Pockets, or I'm gonna start squirtin' metal!"
"Get back, Kid!" I yelled. "This thing's fast!"
"So'm I. An' I ast ya: how fast can somethin' that big—"
These were the last words The Kid ever uttered in the flesh. The creature's other great hand fell upon J.D.'s head, enclosing it in a giant five-fingered cage. The Kid was fast, as well: he got off four shots, the large-caliber slugs notching grooves across the massive torso as they were deflected by something denser beneath the outer sheath of gray flesh. Then the hand clenched and, like Beau's, the scrappy little vampire's head was crushed. It and then the rest of him dissolved in a silent explosion of chalky dust.
"Nooo!" I shrieked. I was still on my back, my leg trapped in the creature's bear trap grasp, but I'd kept the sword. I pulled a sit-up and swung the blade down across the forearm that held me prisoner. The bright metal sheared through that tree trunk of muscle like a hot knife through whipped cream. The monster screamed, raising its stump of an arm that was now spouting greenish ichors like a Halloween drinking fountain. I screamed along as the hand that was still locked around my lower leg spasmed, crushing my tibia and fibula.
"Ruin!" the monster moaned, clutching the dribbling stump to its armored chest. "I should kill you but my master needs your blood."
"Where?" I gasped, struggling to my knees. "Where can I find your master, you son-of-a-bitching fiend?" I didn't think it was any more likely to give up that information than Theresa, but hey, as long as I was still talking I wasn't blacking out.
"High above the world, O wretch," it answered. "In his eagle's aerie he watches over us all. You need not search for it: he will come to you, soon. Or bid you come to him. And you will, you know."
"Count on it," I hissed, shuffling forward on my knees. "Just give me the address."
"He will send it with your wife and daughter." He leaned toward me. "His power will remake the world."
He was close enough. I whirled the sword and chopped off the creature's loathsome head. "Not if I rock his world, first," I said as the huge head went bouncing across the room.
Somebody put hinges in the floor: it suddenly rose up to hit me in the face.
I slept and dreamed of bat-headed demons.