55

“Ready the troops!” Akhom boomed to ponytail vamp.  “We travel to American Missile at sunset.”

“Will we bring Regis’ whelps?” asked Ponytail.

“Give them the choice, including Regis and Thomas.  All who refuse will be bound in the dungeons.  We’ll be back for them…someday.”

All the vampires in the room laughed nastily, Ponytail the loudest.  He looked at Kendra and licked his lips.  

“What are you waiting for?” Akhom growled.  

For once Kendra was glad to hear the savage giant’s voice.  It got Ponytail out of the room.  None of the rest of the vamps paid any attention to Kendra as she walked tiredly to the kitchen.  Rich, who had been slumped over the butcher block counter, straightened when he saw her. 

“Breakfast?” he asked brightly.

“No thanks, Rich.”  She grabbed some fruit out of the big bowl near his elbow, and used her headscarf to make a sort of sling to carry it in.

He slumped glumly over the counter again.  “You stink.”

Kendra opened her mouth to reply, but saw that he meant it literally.  “I know.  Um, Rich,” she went on tentatively.  “You know that things have changed around here, right?”

“Yeah.  Why do you think I look so happy?”  He traced the grain in the countertop with the tip of a big chef’s knife.  

“I think you should look scared,” Kendra whispered, and looked around for a back door.

“The only way out is through the front door, and it’s guarded,” Rich said dully.

“I’ll break out through the green house.  Come with me.”

“Pointless.  Can’t break the glass.”  Rich put his head on his arms.  As his neck extended, Kendra saw the ugly puncture wounds there.

“Oh, Rich,” she started, her voice thick with sympathy, but he cut her off.

“Don’t.  I’ll just feel worse.”  A tear ran down the side of his face.  

Kendra hesitated, fruit in hand, unsure where to go.  Where’s Alex when I need him?

Rich got up, pulled a container from the refrigerator, and stacked it on top of the fruit Kendra held.  “Miso soup.  90 seconds in the microwave in your apartment.  Get some sleep.  I know I will.”  He staggered out of the kitchen through a door Kendra hadn’t noticed before.

Kendra set the soup and the fruit on the counter, and hurried to the greenhouse.  Rich and Cyril and the rest of the staff had been content while Regis was in control.  They’d had no reason to seek escape then, so maybe they’d missed something.

The morning sunlight streamed into the greenhouse.  Dust motes, visible only where rays of light pierced the shadows cast by broad or exotically long leaves, rose and fell in the slow thermal currents of the cool spring morning.  Kendra shivered as she circled the huge greenhouse, searching for a crack in the glass, or some sign of rot in the low wooden wall.  She found nothing.  

From the gardener’s cupboard she took a heavy pickaxe.  With her eyes squeezed nearly shut against any shards of glass that might fly back toward her, she swung the axe like a baseball bat at the windows and hit them just above waist-height.  Her arms jerked back as the the axe bounced off the glass with a sharp report.  Kendra bent forward to examine the window.  Nothing.  Unbelieving, she felt it too.  The axe had left no mark.  

Kendra picked up the axe again.  It felt fifty pounds heavier.  She was afraid she would fall over, or poke her eye out if she tried to swing it.  She let it slide through her fingers, and shuffled back into the kitchen, completely exhausted.  

She saw no one on her way to the elevator.  Might as well check the front door.  She dragged her feet through the ballroom and around the corner.  Two vampires, each in black leather, stood on either side of the door.  Their heads turned in unison as they regarded her without expression despite her odd, smelly getup and armful of food.  Kendra turned around, and shuffled to the elevator.  

When she reached the rooms she had shared for so brief a time with Alex, she plunked the food in the kitchen, stripped in the entry hall, then left her stinking costume in a heap near the elevator.  Finally she collapsed on her bed, too tired to shower.  

The next thing she knew Rolph’s face was menacingly close to hers in the dark.  “Dress,” he hissed softly. 

Kendra didn’t dare move, lest it bring her closer to him.

“Shower first.  Hurry.  I’ll be back.”  His laughter faded quickly, as he moved with incredible speed out of her hearing.

Unnerved, Kendra felt around until she found a lamp.  Its light calmed her.  She wanted to sleep more, but it didn’t seem wise to annoy creatures that might literally drain her dry.  She showered quickly, pulled her wet  hair into a loop at the nape of her neck, then dressed.  She managed to eat half of the soup Rich had given her before William came for her.

“Ready?” he said, almost cheerful.

Kendra sighed, flashed William an empty smile, then grabbed an apple, and followed him to the elevator.

None of Regis’ community had joined Akhom’s band of rebels.  Kendra hoped Regis, Thomas and the others were managing.  She knew it was foolish to do so, but she couldn’t help but think of them as the good vampires.  

The inside of the limousine Kendra rode in was silent except for the noise of her breathing.  All sensory evidence of motion, other than the passing lights of a few distant houses, was muffled.  She sat sandwiched between William and Rolf, and across from three of Akhom’s bandits that she did not know.  Fortunately Ponytail did not ride with them.  

Each moment seemed to take forever to pass.  She was surrounded by rebel vampires led by a maniac who wanted to rule the world.  She waited, both poised to fight and aware that it would be pointless to do so.

The convoy stopped.  Kendra had never been sure of the location of American Missile.  She’d never seen it properly from the outside.  She’d always been drugged, blindfolded, or moving at vampire speeds when entering or leaving the evil empire.  Through the tinted windows, she saw a tall chain-link fence stretch away from either side of the narrow road.  It had coils of razor wire along the top.  The HumVee in front of her blocked most of the view of the gate, but she could see that it was as tall as the fence, fifteen or twenty feet. 

“Is this a prison break, or are we at American Missile?” she asked.