Kendra didn’t wait to hear the
terms of her surrender. She
lurched to her feet, scuttled to the far side of the buffet table, and shoved
two slabs of smoked salmon in her mouth. A half-dozen evil business types weren’t going to stop her
from eating. Kendra chewed
quickly, savagely, then drank directly from a carafe of water. The businessmen looked revolted. They didn’t move, but with an outraged
snarl on her face, Xenopoulos headed toward her.
Kendra shifted to keep the table between her and
the spy. Xenopoulos lunged to
Kendra’s left. Kendra moved to the
right. She grabbed a handful of
curried rice from the hill of rice that rose in front of her, and stuffed that
in her mouth. One of the
businessmen huffed with disgust.
Xenopoulos moved farther left. Kendra mirrored her motion. Lentil soup, that would be nutritious
and easy to swallow when it cooled.
In a flash, Kendra used a soup bowl to scoop some from the tureen. Without looking, she set the bowl in
the ice piled under the sliced fish.
Xenopoulos used that moment of distraction to
come around the table. Kendra
heaved the tureen of soup out of the steam table, and ignoring the burning pain
in her hands, dumped it over the spy’s head.
The two goons barreled into the room at the sound
of Xenopoulos’ screams. They
started toward Kendra, but were cut off by the five alarmed businessmen, who were
in full retreat. Kendra grabbed
her bowl of soup and circled the table to scoop some curried rice into it. It was then that her glance fell upon a
dish filled with spicy pickled peppers.
She shoved some of the lentil and rice mix into her mouth while she had
the chance. The food really was
delicious.
Goon One reached her first. Kendra threw a couple of peppers in his
eyes. He howled, and crashed into
Xenopoulos, knocking them both to the floor. Goon Two circled Kendra, both hands up, as if to calm her.
Kendra grabbed the bowl of peppers, and moved
toward the spot in the wall where she thought she’d seen the door. Goon Two faked a move toward her. Kendra countered by raising the
bowl. She warded him off twice
more before her bare heel made contact with the wall behind her. She shuffled to her left. The door should be right behind
her. She bent her knee and pressed
the sole of her foot to the wall behind her, never taking her eyes of Goon
Two. No door opened.
The goon grinned, and moved a little closer. Kendra shuffled farther to her left and
pressed again with her foot.
Nothing.
Goon Two lifted a whole watermelon from the
buffet table. If he threw it, she
would have to react. Odds were
good that in the process she would either be disarmed, or slosh pepper juice in
her own eyes.
The melon flew toward her, and right underneath
it the goon dove for her. Kendra
sidestepped both. The melon and
the goon smashed into the wall nearly simultaneously. Luckily, they hit the door, which swished open. The goon landed flat on his stomach in the
doorway, blocking it open.
Kendra skipped across his back into the
corridor. Goon Two grabbed her
ankle. Kendra turned as much as
she was able, bent forward, and swung the dish of peppers like a bowling ball
into his eyes. He howled, stumbled
to his feet, and ran crookedly down the hall like a crazed cue ball.
Kendra followed him to a men’s room. Completely oblivious of everything
around him, the goon frantically rinsed his eyes at one of the sinks. She studied the room. There was no means of escape, but it
was not a typical bathroom either, more like a locker room. Yes, around a corner stood a central
bank of lockers. Fortunately, no
one else was in the place. The
walls held all kinds of weapons and equipment. Kendra’s eyes were drawn to two large fire extinguishers,
and right above them, a fire alarm.
After she pulled the alarm, Kendra ran back past
Goon Two who continued to whimper as he dunked his head repeatedly in a sink
full of water. In the corridor a
strip of red lights lit a path in the floor. Kendra followed it.
She encountered no one as she ran.
After a couple of minutes, her adrenalin-fueled
burst of energy ran out. Ahead she
saw that the lights ended at what had to be another seamless door. It seemed so far away.
Kendra sank weakly to the ground and crawled on
trembling limbs toward the end of the lit path. Instead of giving her energy, the little bit of food she’d
swallowed seemed to have sapped her strength. It would take ninety minutes for nutrients to reach her
bloodstream. That’s a weird thing to remember.
Why didn’t I take an urban warfare class instead of physiology? The fine grit in the cement floor bit
into her knees. She forced herself
slowly onward.
The sound of booted feet erupted behind her, lots
of booted feet. The drumming
footsteps grew louder. Kendra wasted
no time looking back. She
whimpered as each raw, bruised knee made contact with the hard floor. Kendra reached the end of the lit path
in the floor of the corridor, pressed her back against the stainless steel wall,
and then used hands and feet to lever herself into a standing position. Frantically she touched every bit of
the wall within reach. Nothing.
The boots stopped. Kendra looked up.
Twelve soldiers in gray and black camouflage stood in a ring around
her. Did American Missile have a
private army? Kendra dismissed the
thought, and focused her mind, slippery with starvation, on survival. Ha, ha, it laughed in
sarcastic refusal.
“Take her,” the leader commanded.
The soldiers closed in. Kendra pressed even tighter to the wall that she had so
hoped would be a door. “No--” Reflexively she raised her arms to
protect her head as a half-dozen large gloved hands shot toward her face.
The wall behind her opened. She felt herself lifted out of a
backwards tumble and onto her feet.
She was then propelled backwards a few feet. Something very solid stood between her and the
soldiers. Kendra heard them cry
out in fear, but before she saw what happened, two arms, two stone cold arms,
lifted her.
She was outside. Her surroundings passed far too quickly for her eyes to
register them. Whatever carried
her moved so fast that Kendra’s hair was pushed back and wind rushed in her ears. How is this possible? She tried to turn, but was held
fast. They changed direction
smoothly, but so suddenly that Kendra felt like she was in a movie that skipped. After a dozen more sharp turns, she
felt unbalanced.
About the time Kendra developed enough motion
sickness that she was sure she would vomit, the horrible speed stopped. Her feet touched the ground. She stood uncertainly in the dark. She heard nothing, smelled
nothing. The air was windless and
cool. She shivered, still in her
flimsy johnny and robe. Where am
I? Despite the coolness the
silence became suffocating.
“Hello?” she said in a shaky voice. “Is anyone here?” A minute passed. “Thank you for rescuing me.” Courtesy never hurt.
Light flared as several torches were lit
simultaneously. Kendra
flinched at the sound and the sudden light, dim though it was. When her eyes had adjusted, an
incredible sight emerged from the dark.
She
was in a cathedral…but no. What
Kendra had taken for organ pipes in the dim light were stalactites, elegant and
encrusted with gold and jewels.
Between them stood beautiful marble statues, with eyes that glittered
strangely in the torchlight.
Who
had lit the torches? Even as
the question formed in Kendra’s brain, she knew the answer, and knew, too, that
she’d better choose her next words and actions very carefully.
She
surveyed her surroundings once more, careful to keep her face
expressionless. There were at
least three-dozen “statues” around her, and she stood feet lower than any of
them. One of the marble figures
was seated. He sat on a throne
that, like the stalactites, gleamed dully in the dim light. Was the whole place made of gold and
jewels? The feet of the throned
figure were level with Kendra’s eyes, though fifteen yards in front of
her. She inclined her head
slightly, and fixed her eyes on his shoes, so highly polished that they might
have been obsidian.
“Many
thanks, again, for my rescue,” she said softly, then waited. The sound of water dripping slowly from
some far-off stalactite reached
her ears. The only breath she
heard was her own, of course. She
shivered again.
“Might
I know,” she asked calmly though her teeth chattered, “why you chose to do
so?” Kendra kept her eyes on the
shoes.
No. The word sounded only in her head,
like one of her own thoughts, but her interior voice had never sounded like
that, as empty as the last echo on Earth.
All light vanished. Kendra felt herself lifted. Once again she was carried at a speed that created a wind
tunnel around her. In seconds
complete darkness was replaced with a flash of white florescent light, then an
incomplete dark. She made out the
sounds of traffic just beyond the roar of the wind. In the next instant, it all stopped. She was barefoot and shivering in the
lobby of the physics building at night.
Even as she peered up the elegant stone steps of the main stairway in
disbelief, Kendra knew, without benefit of any of the usual human senses, that
the vampire who had carried her stood in the shadows and watched her.
