Chapter 18

Mia awoke to find Tom lying stretched out on the bed next to her. A gentle smile appeared on his face as he watched her eyes open. She rolled over into his embrace, bringing her lips to his.

As their lips parted, he smiled again and whispered, "Good morning."

Mia returned his smile and, pointing slightly southwest with a wince of pain, said, "Before you ask, Arthur's that way."

With an apologetic shrug, Tom grabbed his compass from the night stand and quickly wrote down the bearing. He then leaned in for another kiss before saying, "Mia, I don't have much time. We're going for Arthur tonight and I need to get this information to the station so we can get a warrant. Mark's out in the living room and, although he doesn't know it yet, he's going to stay here with you. If you feel Arthur move at all, let Mark know."

Mia looked at Tom, aghast, "You're going after Arthur at night?!"

Tom nodded grimly, "Yes. The Chief wants this situation resolved and, even if he didn't, we can't in good conscience give Arthur the chance at another killing spree like he had last night."

Tom's eyes focused on a distant point for a moment before returning to Mia's. With a nervous smile he told her, "I know we haven't known each other for very long, especially from your perspective, but before I go I want you to know that I love you."

A smile spreading across her face, Mia pulled Tom back into her embrace and kissed him softly before replying, "I love you, too. Be careful and come back to me." She chewed on her lip for a moment before adding, "Tom, I don't know what use it will be, but there's something else you should know. I've told you before that I can feel some of Arthur's emotional state through the bond. For as long as I've known him, the primary feeling I get from him is cold purpose. Other emotions may flicker fleetingly across the surface, but the core has always been the same. This morning, just before dawn, that core turned into what I can only describe as suicidal depression. Tonight some of the resolve is back, as well as some excitement, but the primary feeling I get is still depression."

Tom pursed his lips in thought, "What do you think it means?"

Mia shrugged helplessly, "He came here looking for something. Maybe he found it and it wasn't all that he expected. I really don't know, though."

"Well, thanks for the info, it may very well help us tonight during the fight." Tom twisted around and picked up a bulky package from alongside the bed before continuing, "In the event that we do end up having to use the trap, I brought this for you."

Mia opened the bag and pulled out a police issue hooded rain slicker, long kitchen gloves, plastic rain pants and rubber boots. She looked over at Tom with an eyebrow cocked questioningly.

Tom laughed at her expression before explaining, "They'll keep you from getting a rash. I'm sorry, Mia, but I need to get going. Shall we go tell Mark the bad news?"

Laughing, they walked hand in hand out to the living room.

The passage of an hour found Tom pacing restlessly back and forth in front of the SWAT van that had been assigned to his team. The new bearing he had gotten from Mia had crossed one of the lines from that morning over top of a house in Pleasant Hills belonging to Mr. and Mrs. James Bollinger. He had immediately dispatched an officer in an unmarked car to observe the place, but getting a warrant was proving to be far more difficult than he had hoped. Even with the Chief calling in favors, not many magistrates were willing to accept the minimal information that they had been able to put on the affidavit of probable cause. After all, they could hardly state that they had targeted the residence because a fledgling vampire had pointed in the direction of her Master. The Chief had also forbidden Tom from assembling his team at the suspect residence until the warrant was in hand as the Chief didn't want to give Arthur any advance warning of the strike or have the battle take place out in the open in front of witnesses.

As Tom turned to make yet another pass in front of the van, the call came from the Chief; they have their warrant. Within seconds the team was loaded and the van was underway. Twenty minutes later they pulled to a stop in front of the Bollinger residence and the team quickly offloaded and assembled in the yard.

Tom peered up and down the street looking for his observer. Finally picking out the unmarked car he ran towards it only to stop in horror at the sight of the broken glass and the officer's torn throat. Stepping slowly up to the car while yelling for his radioman to call the incident in, Tom examined the body more closely. Blood was still oozing from the wound and had not yet begun to coagulate; the officer had died only moments before.

Tom turned and gave the order to breach. They cleared the house quickly, finding only two dead bodies. One, presumably Mrs. Bollinger, was found, bloodless and with a broken neck, crammed inside a freezer in the basement. The other, an unknown male, was found in what looked to be an office. With the assistance of one of his men, Tom broke the male's neck as well.

Tom had his radioman call for the CSI unit while the rest of the team began a more thorough search of the premises. He was moving to join them when his cell phone rang.

The moment Tom answered, Mark's voice burst from the receiver, "Tom! Arthur is on the move..."

Tom replied, "Yeah, we kinda figured that out. The house..."

Mark interrupted, "Mia says that he's coming right for us!"

"Shit! Get Mia to the Old Jail. We'll meet you there."

"Already on the way, boss. We decided to wait to call you until Mia could make certain that Arthur was after her, rather than just moving towards us by coincidence. He changed direction to track our movements, so it's pretty damn certain."

Tom quickly got his task force back into the van and, with the lights flashing and the siren blaring, they raced back towards the downtown area. Under Tom's encouragement, the driver pushed the van to such dangerous speeds that it tilted up slightly to ride on two tires with each turn. While in transit, Tom called the Chief to have him evacuate the jail and the area around it for several blocks.

Ten minutes later, the van streaked by the patrol cars and bright yellow road barricades to come to a squealing stop a short distance from the chosen entrance to the Old Jail. Weapons in hand, Tom's task force deployed into the building at a fast jog. Mia, encased in the rain gear Tom had given her, was already secured to the heavy chair; her arms and legs clamped into leg irons, and her entire body nearly mummified by thick chains. As he and his team entered the large room, Tom only had time to spare Mia one quick, sympathetic glance before Mark came bursting out from a door that led to the jail's basement.

"Everything's all set, boss. The garlic's in the reservoir," Mark yelled as he ran towards the other members of the team. While en route, he paused for a moment to pull the fire alarm. Immediately water reeking of garlic burst from the sprinkler system...

Before the first drop of water could hit the floor, Mia cried out, "He's here!"

Tom cursed under his breath; he had sent two of his archers to the covered bridge that connected the jail with the original courthouse to cut off any possible escape, but there was no hope of them reaching their destination for at least a few more minutes.

Mark's spear team quickly formed a line across the width of the hallway with Tom's team, equipped with longer spears, falling in behind them. The fire support teams bunched together several yards farther back.

A man in an expensive suit followed closely by a number of men in tattered and bloody leather appeared at the entrance to the building. With impossible speed they rapidly closed in on the police line. A few of the intruders sprouted arrows from chests, arms and legs. Only one fell. Halfway down the passage, the man in the suit slowed and allowed his followers to overtake and pass him. All of the undead had developed large, seeping sores and blisters wherever the water had touched them. The only one who even appeared to notice was the one that Tom took to be Arthur and his response was limited to a pained and angry glance at the sprinklers.

The intruders hit the line of blue with a tremendous crash. Tom thrust his spear forward at the chest of a huge biker whose eyes were devoid of anything resembling sanity. In his peripheral vision he saw another of the bikers, impaled through the shoulder, push itself forward with no regard for the spear that drove ever deeper into its flesh until it could reach the officer holding the dowel. The officer fell backwards, his face and chest in ruins.

The line began to buckle. As Tom pulled his spear from the chest of his target, he observed Mark fly through the air, his arms windmilling. Mark impacted against the opposite wall with a meaty thud and fell limply to the floor. Then Tom was forced to return his attention to the battle as another vampire in tattered biker regalia tore the throat from one of Tom's men and turned toward Tom.

The line collapsed. As the newest biker came at Tom with an animalistic growl, Tom heard one of his men scream in agony as two of the ferals, one at the man's shoulders and the other at his feet, lift him from the floor and struggle for control over their prey. With a crackling of bone and the wet sound of tearing skin and muscle, the man's legs were pulled from his body. Tom drove his improvised spear into the chest of his latest attacker, but slipped on the blood coating the floor and fell to his knees. Before he could regain his feet, the vampire in the suit twisted sinuously by him penetrating to the center of the room. He came to a halt directly in front of Mia.

Tom heard Mia cry out, "Arthur, don't do this!"

The target of her plea ignored it and shouted in return, "Mia, I command you to kill every mortal you can find until you are slain or the sun rises. You are not to take shelter from the sun."

In the depths of the hood of her rain coat, Tom could see Mia's face contort in horror and sorrow. She pulled violently at the chains holding her and Tom could hear the creaking of strained wood. The creaking became splintering as the chair sundered. Mia stood easily despite the more than five hundred pounds of chains draped across her. The chains, no longer anchored by the stout chair, fell from her limbs to pile at her feet. Her eyes tightened in concentration and the modified leg irons that bound her arms slipped loosely from wrists that had shrunk with change. She looked down at the leg irons on her ankles and, even over the din of combat, Tom heard the clicks of locks disengaging.

Mia's Master, ignoring the arrows that continued to sprout from him, turned back toward the entrance and began to run, twisting and dodging past the bowmen who are now fighting a running battle with the ferals. As he reached the spot where the spear line once stood, Dana, her neck a bloody mess and crossbow long gone, pushed herself up from the floor with the splintered remnants of a spear in her hands. He twisted to avoid her, but it was too late. Dana threw herself forward to put all of her weight behind the thrust of her spear and it struck true and deep into the center of his chest. He gazed down at the protruding wood with an odd, beatific smile on his blistered lips before his eyes became fixed and dull. Slowly he fell to the floor next to the limp and motionless form of his slayer.

Across the room, Mia suddenly released the terrified bowman that she held from the floor by the throat. Her head snapped around to watch as her Master fell. A look of wonder and exultation appeared on her face as the bonds of compulsion and the knot of emotion that was her Master evaporated to nothingness. Glancing quickly around the room she picked out the densest concentration of ferals and headed toward them in a blur of motion.

"Mia, catch!" Tom called out, throwing a spear sideways towards her.

Mia grabbed the spear from the air and snapped it into three pieces, tucking one of them under her arm while grasping the other two in her hands. She somersaulted over a feral that had bent over to finish off one of the bowmen. As she rolled over its back, she thrust one of the dull pieces of wood completely through its chest before flipping upward to land between two others of its kind.

Grabbing the piece of wood from under her arm, she spun while extending her arm, impaling one of the two ferals through the heart. In the same motion, she drove the wood in her other hand up through the other feral's chin until it emerged from the top of its head in an explosion of brains, bone and blood.

Noticing that the flow of water from the sprinklers had slowed to the merest of trickles, Mia decided to risk a change that would expose her skin. Pieces of the rubber glove that had covered her left hand fell to the floor as her nails extended into sharp talons and bony spikes grew from the back of her hand.

Ferals are faster and stronger than sentient vampires of the same age, but Mia had an advantage of more than a century. She moved from feral to feral and none were able to stand against her for more than mere seconds.

As she drew her changed fist from the chest cavity of the last of the ferals, casually casting its heart to the side, Mia glanced up at the few policemen who remained standing, watching her with a mixture of fear and awe. "You must drive wood through the hearts of the fallen undead or they may heal and rise again," she directed.

As the officers hurried to follow her instructions, Mia moved to stand over the body of her former Master. He had fallen too easily, she decided. None of the officers had turned their weapons upon their comrades; none had halted in confusion as their memories of the past weeks were torn from them; and he had moved entirely too slowly. She wondered if this enigma had something to do with the change in emotion she had felt coming from him the previous morning. Was it possible that he had come here seeking his own destruction?

Mia's thoughts were interrupted by a small, bubbling groan from the slight body that laid next to that of her Master. Mia knelt by Dana and gently turned her over onto her back, wincing at the sight of the grievous injuries that the woman had sustained. Mia could not imagine how the woman was managing to cling to life. Hearing footsteps behind her, Mia said, "Call for an ambulance. She will need a great deal of blood."