"Where's the door that goes to the underground place?" Jahlil said. "That's all I wanna know."

"It's hidden, I'm sure," David said. He stepped across the threshold. The others entered behind him.

"We'd better close these doors," Jahlil said. "The mutts are getting up"

Indeed, back in the cemetery, the vampiric hounds had begun to stir, like broken toys that had been repaired and gifted with new batteries.

David and Jahlil grabbed the interior door handles and pulled the doors shut, cutting off the daylight. The flashlight was the only light source in the silent vestibule.

Nia ran her palms across the walls, searching for an indentation, or a lever. Jahlil began to do the same along the opposite wall. King sniffed curiously at the tombs.

Slowly, David walked, scanning the light beam around. He did not know what he was looking for. Anything out of the ordinary. As if walking inside a family mausoleum was an ordinary task.

"There's gotta be a door, somewhere," David said. He noticed King snuffling around a tomb against the far wall. "Wait a minute. King, move away from there"

Ears raised curiously, the dog edged aside.

David shone the flashlight across the lid of the stone coffin.

Large fingerprints were imprinted along the dusty edge.

Someone had recently opened the tomb.

David looked at Nia. "You said Mason, his wife, and their three kids were buried in here. But there are six graves, not five"

"You're right," Nia said. She came closer. "I didn't notice that"

David gave the flashlight to Nia. "Jahlil, help me open this, would you?"

Nia kept the light over them as they lifted the tomb's heavy lid. The thick cover raised like the hood of a car, attached to the granite casket via a set of steel hinges.

The tomb was empty.

A circular hole, large enough to admit a man, yawned in the center. The flashlight revealed a set of stone ladder rungs that began along the side of the opening, and dropped down into the darkness. David could not see the bottom of the shaft.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jahlil said, dusting his hands on his jeans. "We've got to go down there? Why can't we lob a bomb down there and call it a day?"

"That won't work," David said. "We have to be sure that he's gone"

"He's right," Nia said. She looked weary, and a pang of anxiety twisted through David. How much time did they have before the vampire poison worked its way through Nia and robbed her of consciousness? Most likely, not much time at all.

Jahlil groaned. "All right. This just keeps getting better, doesn't it?"

Nia peered over the lip of the hole, directing the flashlight down there.

"I can see the bottom, but barely," she said. "My guess is that it's a drop of about twenty, twenty-five feet"

David looked, too. "Yeah, something like that" He stepped back. "You don't all have to go, I can go by myself. You can wait up here"

"Negative, Hunter," Nia said. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm with you all the way on this? I'm going, and you can't stop me"

"So am I," Jahlil said. He sighed. "I guess. Let's pray for G.o.d to stay with us on this, y'all."

David opened his mouth to argue about them following, then stopped, knowing that debating would be fruitless. Already, the three of them had endured so much together. He could not demand that they stand back and watch. Not now. They had already pa.s.sed the point of no return.

"But you, King, you're staying up here," David said to the dog. "Unless you can climb down a ladder."

The dog wagged his tail eagerly, as though game for the challenge. But there was no way that David was carrying the dog down there. It was out of the question.

"Let's lighten our load, then," David said. "We need to bring only the essentials: guns and explosives."

They stuffed the remaining Molotov c.o.c.ktails-they had only three left-into David's duffel bag. David carried the bag over his shoulder. Jahlil carried his shotgun, Nia wore her gun on her hip holster, and David had slid his own pistol at the back of his waist, where it was held snug by his belt.

"I'll go first," David said. "Nia comes after me, and Jahlil, you'll bring up the rear. Everyone ready?"

They nodded. David gazed into the shaft. It was like staring into the throat of a giant monster.

We're out of our minds for doing this, he thought. But the thought did not stop him. This had long since ceased to be a rational mission. They were fueled by faith alone. As he looked into the pit, he had an acute understanding of why his ancestor, William Hunter, had never been the same after confronting Diallo in the cave over a century ago. The man, operating on faith and courage, had looked Death in the face and survived, and there was little wonder why, afterward, William had become a legend who dedicated his life to saving others. Why fear man when you had conquered something greater than man?

If I live through this, everything is going to change for me, David thought. I don't know how, but it will.

He stashed the flashlight inside his shirt pocket, leaving the beam on. He gripped the edges of the tomb, slid his leg over the rim, and found a toehold on a ladder rung. He swung his other leg over, balanced that foot on the rung, too.

Then he clutched the ladder in both hands. The stone was cool and dry.

"It's steady," he said. "But take your time."

He began to descend. The sound of his breathing echoed in the shaft. The walls, revealed in the backsplash of the flashlight, were smooth, yet corroded in spots.

Above him, Nia positioned herself on the rungs and began to climb down. Jahlil came soon after.

The combined noise of their breathing was disturbingly loud. David had given up any hope that they would take Diallo by surprise, unless the beast slumbered in a soundproof coffin.

Abruptly, one side of the shaft's wall ended. They were nearing the bottom. After he pa.s.sed the next rung, his foot touched solid ground.

He moved away from the ladder. He shone the flashlight around.

He was at the end of a long tunnel. It was about the width of a hallway in a large house, with a ceiling perhaps eight feet high. Several dark doorways branched off from the main corridor. The area reeked of damp earth, and old dust.

Nia, then Jahlil, pushed away from the ladder and joined him, their footsteps echoing in the pa.s.sageway.

"d.a.m.n," Jahlil said, in a whisper. "So Ed Mason had his own little crib down here"

"Yeah," Nia whispered. "But which room will we find him in?"

"We're staying together," David said. "We'll check in each one. We can't risk being separated"

He was about to ask them to draw their weapons, but they automatically did so without him speaking a word.

David gripped the flashlight in his left hand. In his right, he held the .3 8.

It was so quiet in the tunnel that they might have been a thousand feet under the earth.

He was drenched in cold, sticky sweat. But his mouth was dry, and when he ran his tongue over his lips, it felt like steel wool sc.r.a.ping across his skin.

They crept down the corridor with the stealth of ghosts. He felt, rather than heard, Nia and Jahlil moving behind him.

Does Diallo feel us coming, too? Is he toying with us by allowing us to hunt him like this?

It was impossible to predict what their vampire nemesis had in store for them.

He swept the light beam into the first chamber. The room was full of old tables and chairs, and wooden crates that likely stored more comfort items. Edward Mason had planned to create a cozy home for himself down here.

But no living creature was inside. He shook his head to indicate to Nia and Jahlil that nothing important was in there.

Silently, he moved toward the next room.

Nia was determined to stay on her feet.

She did not tell David and Jahlil the degree of her pain. Her bitten leg throbbed, the bite burning as though the wound had been soaked in acid. Worse, a cold numbness had begun to spread throughout her thigh. She knew it would be only a matter of time before the numbness consumed her entire body and she lost consciousness, like the others who had fallen to the vampires.

I can't let that happen to me, she thought. G.o.d, I can't let that happen. We've been through too much for me to fall before we reach the end.

She gripped the revolver so tightly her flesh seemed to be fused to the metal. She kept the muzzle directed toward the ceiling, ready to bring it down and start shooting the instant she sensed danger.

David walked ahead of her. He had taken on a superhuman responsibility, and she admired and loved him for it. She would not let any harm come to him. She would sacrifice herself to protect this man, and she knew in her heart that he would do the same for her.

David directed the light inside the next room. He shook his head. Empty.

Pain sizzled through her leg. She winced, and continued forward.

Jahlil wanted for this to be over.

He hated that they had to climb down into this tunnel. He understood why it was necessary, but he hated it all the same. He hated those vampires. He hated what had happened to Dad. He hated everything that he had seen.

He didn't know what motivated David and Nia to keep going, but for him, it was simple: hate. Or maybe anger was more accurate. He didn't know. He couldn't identify his own emotions anymore. But it was easier for him to feed on anger, and hate, than it was for him to give in to the storm of other, more painful feelings that churned just below the surface of his thoughts. He could not afford to be weak.

His fingers tingled on his shotgun. Man, he wanted to blow away that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Diallo so bad. Diallo was the reason why all of this c.r.a.p was happening. Nothing would please Jahlil more than seeing Diallo's lunatic brain splattered against the wall.

But where was he? They had checked two rooms so far, and all they had found was a bunch of old furniture and boxes.

Jahlil looked over his shoulder every few seconds, to make sure no one ambushed them from behind. He glanced at the ceiling, too. He had learned his lesson. They could be attacked from anywhere.

But the bloodsucker a.s.shole had to know that they were down here searching for him. He had all those crazy powers and probably sensed them when they first came to the graveyard. So where was he? What was he waiting for?

I've got something for you, Jahlil thought. I don't care how powerful you are, I'm not going out without plugging some lead into your vampire a.s.s.

Shotgun ready, he pressed onward.

David flashed the wand of light inside the third room. Like the other chambers they had seen, it was full of only furniture and crates.

Don't drop your guard, he reminded himself. Don't relax and get careless. There are a few more places for us to check out.

He shook his head, signaling that there was nothing of interest inside. He turned back to the main pa.s.sageway.

As though the corridor had suddenly become a wind tunnel, a blast of cold wind picked him up and hurtled him forward.

He shouted in surprise. He heard Nia and Jahlil yelling, too.

The roaring gale flung him into the chamber at the far end of the tunnel. He smacked against a wall, the impact cracking through his body. The flashlight fell out of his hand and rolled across the floor, the lens broken, but the yellow light still alive. He dropped the gun, too.

Nia and Jahlil tumbled on top of him in a tangled heap. Jahlil swore viciously, and Nia moaned in pain.

Desperate to get his hands on the firearm and the flashlight, David struggled from under their bodies. He crawled across the cold floor, grabbed the gun. Then he reached for the flashlight.

An invisible force s.n.a.t.c.hed it away from him and threw it against the wall. Gla.s.s shattered. The light winked out.

Above him, an unearthly, blood-red glow blazed into life, like a crimson strobe light.

The strange luminescence brightened most of the vast room, which seemed to be the size of a high school gym.

Because of the ghostly light, the walls, floor, and ceiling appeared to be painted with blood.

Diallo stood in the middle of the chamber, face tilted upward, arms outspread. Basking in the crimson rays.

As David regarded the vampire, he questioned their sanity for ever thinking that they could defeat this monster. He was a giant whose powers defied explanation. What chance did they have against him?

Nia and Jahlil slowly got to their feet. They wore the same awestruck expression that David was certain was on his face, too.

Diallo lowered his head and glowered at them.

"All of you are brave," Diallo said. His deep, melodic voice reverberated through the room. "You have had a.s.sis tance from Lisha, my former companion, as well. But that is not enough to save you"

Jahlil was the first to shake off the temporary paralysis that pinched the three of them, and attack. He jerked up his shotgun, aimed, and fired.

The boom of the gunshot echoed harshly.

Diallo took the hit in the chest. The giant rocked backward slightly, but he did not fall. A single shot would not be nearly enough to destroy him.

David did not plan to wait for Diallo to make the next move. Raising the .38, he squeezed off one, two, three shots.

Miraculously, each round hit the target, plowing into Diallo's chest.

In his peripheral vision, David spied Nia. She was shooting at Diallo. Jahlil had pumped the shotgun and begun to fire again, too.

The vampire quaked under the barrage of gunfire. Staggering, he brought up his arms to shield himself. He growled like a grizzly bear snared in a trap.

We're going to beat him, David thought, with a burst of giddy optimism. It's not going to be as hard as we thought...