With all his weight behind it, he rammed the thing into my chest and blood shot up and out. My body shook and bucked as if with seizure, hands clawed, legs kicked.

A terrible suffocating weight settled on me, crushing and smothering out the life.

He pushed once more and the shattering, engulfing agony negated all thought and effort as a dying animal's shrieks filled the building; ugly, frightening screams that shook the walls and went on and on until there was no more air for the lungs to push out. The mouth hung uselessly open, and the last echoes hammered down the stairs and were finally lost in the darkness below.

Chapter 10.

FIRE.

BLACK FIRE.

Black fire you can't see or hear or smell, only feel, and by then it's too late. It's caught hold and is consuming everything.

Searing black fire that fills the chest from the inside out, until it should explode from the heat and end things forever, hut doesn't. The silent body lies inert, enduring and somehow still conscious. Death is too far away for sanity to remain.

Gaylen's chair wheels grinding over the flooring, Malcolm's steps fading... crunch, b.u.mp, and they were in the elevator. The door was pulled shut and they began to descend. He would load her into the truck and they would go somewhere else.

Somewhere... Bobbi... They'd pulled her out-their voices said as much in the distance...

Move. Move something.

Bobbi had seen their faces, they couldn't afford to let her go. Gaylen would never take that chance.

But she had promised. She had- Did a finger twitch? Or was that imagination?

My hands had only found movement at the end, when the wood stake plunged into me. The right one found direction, clawing to pull it out, and the left had convulsively torn through part of the steps. It was still there; damp river air curled around my fingers.

Doors slammed shut. The motors started, gears shifted, and they rumbled into the street.

Try to move.Nothing. The body was still and dead, the brain was just taking a little longer.

The cold was creeping slowly up my legs-cold and then numbness, something familiar and unpleasant. It was what had happened when I tried to stay awake past sunrise to see what it was like. I fought the numbness and clung to the pain. If I gave in and let the sleep take me now I would never wake up again.

Move.

Nothing.

Nothing at all for an infinity.

Alone in the dark with the pain and the cold and the fear for Bobbi. Would it be quick for her? Would they let her go?

Foolish thought.

Numbness from feet to knees. In a few hours it would reach my burst heart and smother the black fire raging there.

A soft crunch, conducted up through the stairs. It repeated and resolved; grit trapped between shoe soles and the flooring. Probably Malcolm returning at last to get rid of the body. I hadn't heard the truck coming back; must have blacked out for a while. I thought unhappily of the dirty river water closing over my head.

Sc.r.a.pe, scrunch. Pause. Not Malcolm, he wouldn't be so cautious. A tramp, then.

He was in for a nasty surprise when he got to the top landing.

Numbness from knees to waist. Death was taking me an inch at a time and moving faster than I'd thought. Soon the ice and nothingness would flow over my brain...

Move, d.a.m.n it, move.

Someone breathing softly, listening at the foot of the landing below me, heart pounding, antic.i.p.ating possible danger from above. Maybe he'd spotted my left hand poking through the underside of the steps and was having second thoughts about coming the rest of the way.

The first thin tendrils of cold streamed into my vitals like a dusting of snow off a glacier.

Heart thundering now, lungs taking short drafts of air, and then a long one as he came up the last flight and stopped because now he could see me. I heard in his voice some fraction of the agony that was holding me so helpless. *Jack... Oh, my G.o.d...

Oh, my dear G.o.d..." tried to speak, tried to move, but the slightest flicker of an eyelid was too much. The thing piercing my chest held me frozen. I could not tell him that some part of me was still alive.

Then Escott's hand closed around the stake.G.o.d, yes, pull it out.

He pulled once, twice, then stopped because the gurgling sob that came out of me startled him. Coming back to life was almost as bad as dying. The third tug did the job, and it sc.r.a.ped between the ribs, shook the breastbone, and finally came free.

Blood welled up coldly in the wound, quenching the fire there, and the body shuddered as the numbness retreated a little.

His hands went under my arms and he eased me from the stairs until my body was level, slowing the downward flow of blood I couldn't afford to lose. My eyes were open now.

He looked worse than I felt, with his paper white face and new lines formed by the horror of what had been done to me and what he had had to do. I'd read a lot of nonsense about vampires, but there was truth to the stories about those killed; when the end came, it came violently and loud, and mine had been no different. The walls of the stairwell were splashed with gore, and from the dampness soaking into my clothes, I knew I was lying in a pool that had formed on the floor below the steps.

The cold was coming back and I tried to tell him about it, but couldn't draw the breath to do so. Thanks for coming, Charles. It's too late, but thanks all the same.

Maybe you can track them down before they kill Bobbi.

My eyes rolled up and the dark closed in. *Jack!"

The lids twitched. They were so heavy. At least this time it wouldn't hurt.

He was doing something, making short, choppy movements above me. "Stay with me, Jack. d.a.m.n your eyes, stay with me."

Fingers forced my lips back. He pulled my teeth apart and the first drops seeped into my mouth. I gagged, fighting him.

"Stay with me," he hissed.

It was hardly more than a taste, enough to seize my attention, but not nearly enough to do me any real good. I couldn't let him risk himself.

"Stay..."

I turned my head away or tried to, but his other hand grabbed my hair and held me in place.

"Stay..."

Then I accepted it. Fully.

My teeth abruptly pierced his skin, and the red warmth flowed more freely. He recoiled-perhaps from pain, perhaps from revulsion at what I was doing-then recovered, knowing that I couldn't help myself. I still desperately wanted to live. The instincts born from my changed nature had taken over and ignored the faint, dissonant warning that I could kill him if I went too far.

I ignored it-and I drank.

A heavy engine driving a heavier load. Men distantly shouting to each other. The lazy lap of wash as the barge pa.s.sed along the river three stories below. The city was slowly waking, or maybe it had never really been asleep.

Some long time earlier I'd found the strength to push away his lifeline, hopefully before it was too late.

My eyes were squeezed shut as much from the effort of recovery as to avoid looking at him. I wasn't quite able to do that just yet.

"Come on. Jack, no games. Are you still with us? Wake up."

His voice was thin, but conversationally normal. Some of the crushing weight on my soul melted away. I wanted to shout from the relief.

"That's it, open them so I know you're all right."

I did, but couldn't focus too well and didn't want to look at the stuff on the walls.

The lids came down again like lead bricks. He, at least, was still alive. I was too shattered and sick to be very certain of my own chances.

He continued, trying to encourage me. "The bleeding in your chest stopped. It closed right up once I took that b.l.o.o.d.y great stick out."

He couldn't have meant it as a joke. My head wobbled from side to side as though to deny the thought. The cold and numbness were gone, but shock and weakness were left in their place. I could move again, barely.

"You'll be all right." He sounded very convincing, but I wasn't quite ready to believe him yet.

I drew an experimental breath to talk, and heard and felt a bubbling noise within. It developed into a spasm and I rolled on one side in a fit of coughing. One of my lungs had been pierced and was full of blood and fluid. This alarmed Escott, but I felt his steadying hand on my shoulder as I hacked some of it out. The business pa.s.sed and I flopped back, exhausted.

I took another breath, shallow this time, to avoid coughing. It stayed inside without discomfort and wheezed out in what I hoped was a recognizable name.

He understood. "Your friends told me where you'd gone. They've heard nothing from the kidnappers yet."

I tried another breath, felt the cough beginning, and forced it to subside. "Gaylen did this-"

"You needn't explain, I found out a great deal about Miss Dumont in New York.""Came back?"

"Yes, that's why I returned early. I thought things might be urgent, so I flew back.

It only took five hours, but I'm sorry it couldn't have been faster."

He was sitting, his knees drawn up and his back to the wall about a yard away, a handkerchief tied around his left wrist. With a wry expression, he retrieved a folding knife from the floor.

"Hadn't time to sterilize it. If I get lockjaw, it will be your fault."

He tucked it away in a pocket and said nothing more of what else had happened.

"Did they give you any idea where they were going?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Took her away. Another woman with them. Malcolm-" I had to stop for the coughing.

"That's all right," he told me. "I'll see to it, I'll do my best."

"No cops?"

"No," he a.s.sured me. "Do you think you can move?"

"Can try." One thin, stained hand gripped the stair rail and pulled, the other pushed against the floor. He helped, but it was too much. The cough returned and the convulsions doubled me over.

"Have to wait." I whispered. "Weak."

He looked away, uneasy. "You can't wait long, the sun will be coming up shortly."

"When?" I had no sense of time pa.s.sing. The whole night must have slipped by.

"About thirty minutes."

It was no good, I needed hours to recover-and my earth. "My trunk. Bring it here. I have to-"

"Certainly, if you'll be all right alone."

There wasn't much choice. He could probably carry me down to his car, but I was in no shape to move. The trip could kill me if I were exposed to the sun in this weakened state. I nodded yes, and hoped I was telling the truth.

It took him a little longer than thirty minutes. Though I was in a shadowed area, I was too feeble to fight the daylight blaring through the broken windows. I slipped into a half-aware trance, eyes partially open and unblinking.

He did finally return with the smaller of my two trunks, loaded down with two bags of earth. I must have looked really dead then, for he paused to check for a pulse and heartbeat before putting me into the trunk. There were none to be found, of course, but he was optimistic.

As soon as I was lowered onto the bags inside I went out completely.

The next night I surprised myself and woke up.

Escott was perched on a chair, peering at me. "How do you feel?"

A reasonably important question, I thought it over while checking things from the inside out. "Alive," was the conclusion. I didn't mention the ton of iron wrapped tightly around my chest or that my head felt like a balloon ready to pop. My nose and throat hurt as well, but they were much less noticeable.

"Bobbi?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I have been trying."

We were both silent. If Bobbi were not free by now there was little or no chance of her still being alive. After what Gaylen had done to Braxton and then me... The emptiness inside yawned deeper and blacker.

Escott saw and guessed what was going on. "Jack, I need you thinking, not feeling. There's still a chance for her."

"Yeah, just give me a minute." It took longer than a minute to shut it all down. I had to make myself believe she was alive. Anything else had to be kicked out or I'd be useless. Bobbi was alive and needed help, and that was that.

Escott got up while I was adjusting things. We were in his hare dining room, the only place on the ground floor with just one window. The panes of gla.s.s were now covered with sheets of cardboard to block out the day's sun. He pulled it all down, stacking the stuff neatly on a packing crate and twitching the curtains back together.