Cross

Book 3 Chapter XII - Two Nightmares Too Many

Chapter 30 - Two Nightmares Too Many

David removed his jacket and tore it into several pieces, which he wrapped tightly around Dani, while trying to ignore the hunger that seeing and smelling blood awoke in him. The girl was bleeding badly and had already lost consciousness. He wasn't surprised. That wound looked like it had been caused by a chainsaw, not a scythe.

He kept a wary eye on the robot Nightmare, but it never moved unless he showed any signs of coming towards it or firing at it. Apparently, it was only programmed to attack if it was attacked. So how had it spoken when they first met it? Was the real Nightmare hanging around somewhere, occasionally taking its place?

"Aww, is your little girlfriend hurt?" Nightmare - the real one - asked derisorily, appearing out of nowhere and hovering overhead. "How cute."

David made sure that the make-shift bandages were secure but not too tight, then got up and picked up his gun. Nightmare tightened her grip on her scythe, the blade of which, he now saw, was designed like a chainsaw.

Just what I needed, he thought. Especially when I'm almost out of bullets.

Nightmare leapt at him, spinning her chainsaw/scythe around in a fairly good impression of a windmill. David jumped back, resulting in her stabbing the stone floor with the weapon.

While she was preoccupied with trying to get it out, David aimed at her heart and fired. She didn't flinch as she pulled the "chainscythe" - that was the only word he could think of to describe it - free and then proceeded to slice the bullet in two with it, as calmly and coolly as if she did that sort of thing every day.

That was not the result he had in mind. And now, as if things weren't bad enough, he had only five bullets left. And she could probably cut right through them.

Damn her.

The only way he was likely to win this fight was if he could find some way to deactivate the chainsaw part of the scythe, and shoot immediately afterward. But what could he deactivate it with?

He dodged another slash from her scythe and rapidly decided on a course of action. To be able to defeat Nightmare, he would have to sneak up on her, and there was nowhere here where he could hide. So he would have to distract her, then shoot her while she was distracted.

David aimed at the chain holding up one of the life-support machines and fired. The chain broke and the machine fell, shattering into a thousand pieces. Nightmare, startled, froze and looked round, giving him the chance to shoot her.

He missed her heart, but hit her throat. No vampire could survive that sort of injury, so David did not expect what happened next. Nightmare stumbled and fell to her knees, but she got up again, clutching her throat with both hands as if she was trying to hold it together. Her pupils vanished and her eyes glowed crimson. There was no blood.

It's the robot version of her!

She opened her mouth and it looked as if she was trying to say something, but couldn't. Instead, she reached down, picked up her weapon, and drove it into the ground. Immediately, cracks started appearing along the stones that paved the floor and pieces started falling down.

There's another cave below this one, then, part of David's mind thought. The rest of his mind shrieked, RUN!

He ran. He ran as fast as he could to where the still-unconscious Dani lay, picked her up, and raced out of the cave and back down the passage leading to it. The floor continued collapsing.

~~~~

Jack arrived in Rome much sooner than he expected (there was something to be said for being flown directly to a place in a police helicopter, after all) and immediately started looking to the Catacombs of Rome. It wasn't hard to find once he saw a map of the city, and he at once set out for it in a borrowed police car. The fact that it was three in the morning didn't bother him.