Dave Carver (Book 1): Thicker Than Blood by Andrew Dudek Read Free Book Online Page B

of effort, pushed him off of me.
    The sword was back in my hand before I was fully on my feet. With my left hand I shoved the vampire. They may have greater-than-human strength, but that doesn’t mean they get to ignore Mr. Newton. When I acted he reacted. The vampire stumbled backwards.
    I brought the sword down in a downward arc that opened the vampire’s belly like a fish. Gray, dry, cordlike entrails tumbled out of his abdomen. He blinked for a moment, staring down at his opened stomach. With another swing I took off his head. The vampire dropped like a stringless marionette. On my follow-through I spun and brought the blade towards the female vampire. She leaped straight up, just in time to avoid decapitation. Instead, the sword sheared through her legs, just below the knees. She landed in a clumsy heap.
    There was a sound like an explosion. The vampire that May had been fighting was thrown into the air like he’d been launched from a trebuchet. He tumbled tail over teakettle into the air and hit the ground in the middle of the street, hard enough to crack the pavement.
    May dusted off the front of her shirt as she stalked towards the downed vampire. He squirmed, trying to rise, but May speared him through the shoulder with her sword. He howled in pain, but he lay still.
    The female vamp lay at my feet, her black eyes grayed with pain. She made weak, pathetic noises like a newborn puppy. I was unimpressed. I left my last shreds of sympathy for the vampires in the Guyanese jungles.
    I grabbed the downed vampire by her collar and slammed her—not gently—against the hood of a nearby parked car.
    “Why are you trying to kill me?” I said. I scared myself with how calm my voice sounded.
    “We’re not,” she said. “We’re really not. He doesn’t want you dead.”
    “‘He?’” I growled. “He who? What are you doing here?
    Her eyes flicked towards the van. Krissy was still sitting in the driver’s seat. The sliding back door was open, and Avalon hunched down in the shadows, watching the scene with cool disinterest. Otherwise, the female vampire gave no sign that she was going to answer my questions. The vampire on the tip of May’s sword moaned in pain, and my vamp looked over in concern.
    Ah . There was an idea. “May,” I said. “Kill her friend.”
    “With pleasure,” May said. She moved the tip of her sword towards the hollow of the vampire’s throat.
    “No!” the vampire screamed. “I’ll tell you anything.”
    “May, wait.” To the vampire, I said nothing, just gazed down at her, patient as a tiger.
    “There’s no time right now,” she said. “The sun will be up soon.”
    She was right about that. The first rays of the morning were already lightening the sky. It would be a few minutes before they made their way down to street level, though—enough so I could get some information out of her before we had to drag her into the shadows.
    “Then I guess you’d better talk fast,” I said.
    “Fine,” she said. “We’re working for Roberto—”
    “ AIEEEEEEE !” The pained scream interrupted my interrogation. The vampire at May’s feet had burst into flames. A stray sunbeam must have taken an unfortunate bounce off of one of the towering building’s windows and hit him.
    “No,” the female moaned. “Please no.”
    My shadow got a little longer as the sun climbed higher into the sky. The light hit the female vampire. Her skin brightened for a moment, like a lobster in a boiling pot. Then it blackened like a steak in a fire. I hopped back, narrowly avoiding the flames that licked the vampire’s skin.
    The vampire screamed as she died.
    Fortunately for her it only took a few seconds. When it was done all that remained was a pile of gray ash. The other three vamps ended up the same way. Sunlight has that effect on vampires. Even ones that are already dead. One stiff wind, and there’d be no sign that four undead soldiers had ever laid on this street.
    The sun was up on my first