“Shit! What did you do?” Carol screamed, jumping back away from him. “Crap.” She tucked the arm against her body, squeezing hard, and brought the stake up.
Antoine glanced at the stake, an amused look spreading across his features. “Just making it easier for our friend here.”
He glanced back at Michael. “He’s looking very pale and bloodless right now. Can you smell it?” he asked. “Nice, fresh, warm blood.”
He turned back to her. “Don’t you feel sorry for him? You’ve seen him suffer. You can help him get better. Just offer your arm. Give him the blood.”
“What did you do?” Michael surged to his feet, his words sharp and strong. He stared at Carol, eyes widening at the sight of the blood.
“Just prepared a little snack for you,” Antoine said. “She’s not badly damaged. And I left her pretty face alone.”
Quicker than she could blink, Antoine grabbed the hand on the injured arm and pulled it forward, away from her chest. He extended it out toward Michael. “Just a small snack. Enough to get you going again. Then you can go find someone else. Some lowlife that doesn’t deserve to live.”
“Let go of her,” Michael said, the words hissing through clenched teeth.
Antoine dropped her arm. “Of course.” A few drops of her blood smeared the vampire’s hand. He raised it to his face, sniffed and let a blissful smile curve his mouth. “Prime vintage,” he said. “Young, healthy female.” His tongue flicked out and licked at the blood. Eyes closed, he licked again, savoring. “Oh my, yes.”
He made another move, again too quick for her to follow, but Michael could and did.
Faster than she could actually see, Michael was there, pulling Antoine away from her. Michael latched on so hard that the two vampires overbalanced and pitched to the floor together. Michael wrapped his hands around the wrist that held the knife and banged it against the floor until the blade dropped free. Carol grabbed it before the vampire could get hold of it again. She stepped back and dropped the knife into a side drawer of the desk. Meanwhile, Antoine tried to push to his feet, but Michael used his hold to drag him back down again. The two struggled, Michael trying to keep him down, Antoine wriggling to break free.
She had no idea where Michael got the strength to do it and it couldn’t possibly last long, but for the moment he kept control of Antoine. The two rolled around on floor, first one, then the other on top. They smashed into the loveseat, pushing it back into the wall, and an end table. Both it and the lamp on it crashed to the floor.
Their struggle took them dangerously close to the fire, but then Antoine twisted, nearly escaping from Michael’s hold, and they rolled away from it again. Antoine raised a fist and brought it down toward Michael’s face.
Michael dodged the fist, but he looked weaker. One of his hands slid off Antoine’s arm and the vampire pushed back against him. She had to do something. Michael couldn’t last much longer.
The two moved and rolled until they stopped in a position where Michael could see her, but Antoine faced the other way.
She raised the stake. Michael flicked his eyes in acknowledgement.
She’d only have one shot at this, so she’d better make it good. She had to trust Michael could hold Antoine steady long enough.
Raising her arm to bring the stake up as high as she could, she rushed toward them. At four feet away, she launched herself forward, bringing her arm down at the same time, putting every ounce of her strength behind it as she jammed the stake into Antoine’s back, right over where she hoped his heart was.
It was the most horrible thing she’d ever done. She felt the stake hit bone—a rib she assumed. Ignoring the nasty, crunching feel of it, she jiggled the stake until it slid past and punched deep into the vampire’s torso.
She waited for him to dissolve or go poof the way vampires did on television, but Antoine just froze for several long moments, then gave a small grunt and collapsed onto the floor. He lay still, chest no longer rising and falling with breath.
Carol backed away a step, staring at the still figure, struggling with her own breath. “Is he…dead?”
Michael rolled over to look. “For the time being.”
“’For the…time being’? What does that mean?”
“As long as the stake’s in him.” He let his head sink back down to the floor and his breathing sounded harsh, too rapid and uneven.
She shivered. “Oh. How can we make him dead dead? I mean, like permanently dead?” A small, remote part of her brain reacted with shock that she should even think such a thing.
“Drain him and…let the sun finish him off,” Michael answered. He was careful not to look at her injured arm.
“What does that mean?”
“It won’t be easy, and I don’t think— Hell…another problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Your stake’s in Antoine and we don’t dare take it out.”
“I don’t— Oh. Ideas?”
He shook his head. For a few minutes, while he’d defied Antoine, he’d looked more normal, more like he had earlier when she’d arrived. He seemed even more wasted now, his body and face fleshless, skeletal.
“Wait,” Carol went to the desk, opened the top middle drawer and found what she sought. A pencil. A nice, sharp, wooden pencil. She held it up so Michael could see. “Will this do?”
“Real wood?”
Carol smelled it. “Yup. Real wood.”
His lips barely pulled into a smile. “Then it will.”
The clock tolled the hour of six.
“Listen.” Michael’s voice was weaker now, sounding thready and strained. “Not much time left. You’re going to have to help me with this.”
“What’s ‘this’?”
“Getting rid of him. And getting me ready for sunrise.”
She stared at him. Every now and then a flicker of red showed in his eyes, but he seemed to be holding it back by sheer force of will.
“What do you need me to do? And what do we do about him?” She nodded toward Antoine.
“Take him outside.”
“All right.”
Carol went around him to get her coat. By the time she put it on, Michael had staggered to his feet again. He looked none too steady, but quite determined.
She grabbed Antoine’s legs and Michael took his arms. Though Antoine was more than six feet tall and Michael had the body’s arms stretched out above the head, it still put her closer to Michael than she felt safe with. Especially when that red glow still sometimes winked in his eyes. She kept the pencil in her hand even though it made it harder to carry the dead vampire.
After ten minutes of struggle, they’d dragged Antoine as far as the kitchen. Michael had to stop twice along the way, conserving his energy to fight the hunger that doubled him up in pain. Each time, she heard him swearing softly to himself and praying for strength.
The back door was off a short hall beyond the kitchen. When they got there, Michael dropped Antoine’s legs and reached for the deadbolt to unlock it. Before he laid fingers on it, though, his hand froze in mid-motion.
Seconds later, he turned and the red glow shone steadily in his eyes. Intense concentration made his face fierce when he glanced at her bleeding arm. Lips pulled back to show his fangs gleaming.
“Shit.” Carol dropped the dead vampire and backed away. “Michael. Resist it. Remember? You’re not giving in.”
For the moment, he’d forgotten. The furious red color filled his eyes and his gaze remained steady on her arm as he took a couple of steps toward her. An odd, keening growl poured from him, interspersed with the word “blood”.
Carol kept her eyes on his chin, watching him advance. She groped for the cross at her throat and held it out. “Michael, please. You don’t want to drink from me. You want your soul back. Remember? Remember?”
Backing away, she stumbled and almost went to her knees, but stuck out a hand and used the wall to steady herself.
He continued to stagger toward her. She raised the pencil in her right hand, holding it point-out so that if he attempted to charge directly at her, he’d be impaled on it. Her left hand lifted the cross up and out.
“Michael, don’t.” She put everything she had into the plea.
He ignored it and continued. At least he didn’t use that super-human speed. Probably couldn’t anymore, though she dared not depend on that. His breathing was loud and heavy. Each harsh exhalation carried a groan with it.
When he was only a couple of steps away, she steeled herself and got the pencil ready, praying it would work. Instead of moving forward any more, though, he surprised her when he stopped, grabbed the wrist that held the pencil, and drew it toward his face. The fangs showed stark white as his mouth opened wide. She tried to shift the pencil in her grip to get it close to him, but almost lost her hold on it entirely.
“Michael, no!” She screamed as she struggled to yank her wrist loose from his hold.