Eph said, “Underneath!”
Nora got down and swung her sword underneath the vehicle’s carriage, the blade’s reach long enough to drive the child back out toward Eph’s side. He cut at its lower right leg, severing the Achilles tendon. But instead of retreating again, the maimed vampire came right out from beneath the Jeep and sprang up at him, Eph’s sword meeting it halfway, cutting down the blood-rabid strigoi in midair. He felt the effort more than ever. He felt his muscles twitch and spasm. A flash of pain ran from his elbow to his lower back. His arm curled in a brutal cramp. He knew what it was: he was malnourished, perhaps even to the point of starvation. He ate very little and very badly—no minerals, no electrolytes, his nerve endings terminally raw. He was coming to an end as a fighter. He fell down, releasing his sword, feeling a million years old.
A wet crunching sound startled Eph from behind. Mr. Quinlan was behind him, bright in the headlights, the head of another child vampire in one hand, the body in his other. The vampire had gotten the drop on Eph, but Mr. Quinlan saved him. The Born threw the dripping body parts to the blacktop as he turned, anticipating the next attack.
Gus’s gun rattled out in the street as more vampires converged on them from the edges of darkness. Eph cut down two more adult strigoi running up from behind the gas station store. He was worried about Nora being on her own, on the other side of the cars.
“Fet! Come on!” he yelled.
“Almost!” Fet yelled back.
Mr. Quinlan lashed out, dropping more sacrificial strigoi, his hands dripping white. They just kept coming.
“They’re trying to hold us here,” said Eph. “Slow us down!”
The Master is en route. And others. I can sense it.
Eph stabbed the closest strigoi by the throat, then kicked it in the chest, retrieved his blade, and ran around to the other side of the Jeep. “Gus!” he called.
Gus was already retreating, his smoking gun silent. “I’m out.”
Eph chopped at a pair of vampires coming up on Nora, then whipped the fuel line out of the Explorer’s tank. Fet saw this and finally gave up pumping. He grabbed Eph’s spare sword out of his pack and took care of another animal-like vampire coming over the Explorer’s hood.
Gus jumped into the front seat of the Explorer, grabbing another weapon. “Go! Get out of here!”
There was no time to throw the gas-soaked pump into the truck. They abandoned it there, gas still drooling out of the tube, slicking the hardtop.
“Don’t shoot this close!” said Fet. “You’ll blow us up!”
Eph went for the Jeep’s door. He watched through the windows as Mr. Quinlan grabbed a female vampire by her legs and whipped her head against a steel column. Fet was in the backseat behind Eph, fighting off vamps trying to get in the door. Eph jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and turning the key.
The engine started up. Eph saw that Nora was inside the Explorer. Mr. Quinlan was the last, climbing into the backseat of the Jeep with strigoi running up to his window. Eph threw the truck into drive and curled out into the street, mowing down two vampires with the Jeep’s silver grille. He saw Nora zoom the Explorer out to the edge of the road, then stop short. Gus jumped out with his machine gun and bent low, firing laterally across the hardtop at the leading edge of the fuel spill. It ignited and he jumped into the Explorer, and both trucks sped away as the flame slid toward the uncapped ground tank, igniting the fumes above for one brief, beautiful moment of winged flame—then the ground tank erupted, an angry orange-black blast, making the ground shudder, splitting the canopy, and frying the strigoi still there.
“Jesus,” said Fet, watching out the back window, past the tarp-covered nuclear bomb. “And that’s nothing compared to what we’ve got here.”
Eph gunned it past the vehicles in the road, some of the vampires rushing to get behind the wheel. He wasn’t worried about outrunning them. Only the Master.
Late-arriving vampires darted out into the street, practically throwing themselves into the path of the Jeep in an attempt to slow them down. Eph tore through them, seeing hideous faces for an instant in the headlights just at impact. The caustic white blood ate at the Jeep’s rubber wiper blades after a few back-and-forth swipes. A gang had gathered on the entrance ramp leading back onto Interstate 81, but Eph went right by that ramp, heading down the dark town road.
He followed the main road, handing the map back to Fet, watching for the Explorer’s headlights in his rearview mirror. He didn’t see them. He felt for the walkie-talkie, finding it on the seat near his hip. “Nora? You get out? You two okay?”
Her voice came back a moment later, adrenalized. “We’re good! We’re out!”
“I don’t see you.”
“We’re … I don’t know. Probably behind you.”
“Just keep heading north. If we get separated, meet up at Fishers Landing as soon as you can get there. You got that? Fishers Landing.”
“Fishers Landing,” she said. “Okay.” Her voice crackled.
“Run with your headlights off when you can—but only when you can. Nora?”
“We’re going to … up … onward.”
“Nora, I’m losing you.”
“… Eph …”