We had escaped. The zombies couldn’t catch us now.

A quad bike rounded the bend ahead of me, a zombie at the controls. The fat rider hung on to the handlebars like they were the horns on a buffalo. A second quad bike shot through his dust trail.

Two quad bikes against this Jeep?

No contest. I aimed for the lead bike.

They came at me full speed. The zombie riders let go of their hand controls and stood on the foot pegs. They intended to ram me and fly into the Jeep.

Fools.

I kept accelerating. Drawing from the last measures of my supernatural juju, I forced my reflexes to go to vampire speed.

Milliseconds decelerated into seconds. The zombies and their bikes moved in slow motion.

They flexed their legs to leap off the pedals.

I swerved right. The Jeep fishtailed against the first bike.

We bucked to the side. The front tires of the quad bike flattened against the side of the Jeep. The struts holding the wheels ripped free and the bike somersaulted behind us. The zombie smashed against the rear panel of the Jeep.

I wrenched the steering wheel in the other direction. The Jeep nearly tipped as it careened to the left.

I bore down on the second quad bike. This zombie rider readied a large spike.

The Jeep rammed his quad bike and crushed the front end. The quad bike crumpled and dragged the zombie beneath our wheels.

Thonk. Steam and the odor of glycol sprayed over the Jeep’s hood.

The zombie had punctured the radiator.

Time sprang back to normal speed.

I checked the gauges. They were still in the green. We had a few minutes before the loss of coolant destroyed the engine. My kundalini noir jerked spastically, twitching with anxiety because we were miles from safety.

I raced along without lights. The dust cloud trailing the Jeep glowed like a luminescent plume.

The Jeep rattled on the uneven road. The temperature gauge crept to the red line. Phaedra slumped against her lap belt. Her aura trembled like a weak flame.

I grasped Phaedra’s hand. The chill surprised and frightened me.

How could I save her? I was no doctor.

Something moved to my right. The zombie from the first quad bike I’d run over was still with us. He climbed across the right rear window for the roof, nimble as an orangutan. That’s because his lower torso had been ripped off.

I slammed on the brakes, hoping to catapult him loose. Instead he thumped against the roof.

I sped up. The idiot light for the coolant temperature came on. The Jeep bucked over the washboard road. The zombie bounced on the roof. Where the road smoothed, I accelerated and swerved side to side. The zombie thumped but wouldn’t let go.

I braked again, then sped up. He hung on for the ride no matter what I did.

What did the zombie want?

Of course, as long as he was with me, he would use his psychic connection as a beacon for the other zombies to follow.

I reached up and felt the zombie’s fingers where they hooked into the rain gutter. I braided my fingers into his and snapped the digits like breadsticks. I peeled the broken fingers from the rain gutter. “I know I shouldn’t litter.” I grabbed him by the wrist, jerked him loose, and pitched him like a bag of trash into the rocks.

The temp gauge was in the red zone. The engine was about to seize.

We passed the first houses where the residents rested like sleeping cows, oblivious to the plague of the undead spreading around them.

We reached the cemetery and the paved road. The engine lights came on and the engine squealed its death cry. I stepped on the clutch and kept us rolling. The Jeep’s tires hummed on the smooth asphalt. I wanted Phaedra to acknowledge that we were safe. I clasped her wrist. Her pulse was as faint as her aura.

The Jeep lost momentum near the outcropping where I’d hidden my clothes before my transmutation. I pulled off the road and let us stop as close to the rocks as I could.

“We’re okay,” I told her.

But she couldn’t hear me. Her aura flickered, becoming fainter and fainter.

CHAPTER 49

I pulled Phaedra close. I smoothed her hair. It was moist with perspiration and cool, too cool.

“Don’t die, sweetheart. Not after all that. Please.”

Her aura flickered again, like a loose wire had moved into place. Her eyes struggled to open and a weak breath pulled through her nostrils.

I set her back into the seat. “Good. We’re safe.” I glanced south to make sure.

Her aura remained weak and her breathing shallow. What could I do to keep her from dying? I ran through the scenarios. Stop a police car and ask for help? Say, Mister Cop, I’ve got this underage girl here and we were attacked by zombies.

Fatigue weighed upon me. My body felt weak.

Phaedra drew a breath and it caught in her throat as if her body didn’t want the air. Her aura brightened-not by much, going from dim to less dim. Limp tendrils grew from her penumbra, waving like soggy reeds in a sluggish current.

I cupped her neck and stroked her hair. “Stay with me.”

The tendrils from her aura trailed into smoky wisps and disappeared.

I clenched my fists in anger and desperation. Not her.

A familiar panic and dread returned. I found myself spiraling down a funnel of despair. As a young boy, I couldn’t help my mother in her struggles with my alcoholic father and the abuse of the in-laws who blamed her for the family troubles. He wasn’t an alcoholic before he married you. I couldn’t help her when we were evicted and lived like vagabonds on the charity of our cousins. When we studied about the homeless in school, I realized we were talking about my family.

I fooled myself into thinking that as a man I’d never again lose control of my life. Then in Iraq, despite all the might and money of the United States of America, my men and I found ourselves alone in the havoc of urban combat.

We fought in the chaos, mindful of the one misstep or the instant of hesitation that could mean going home upright and whole or on our backs in body bags. One terrible night I led my squad in an ambush and we didn’t hesitate to annihilate the enemy. When the firing stopped, we had instead massacred a family of Iraqi civilians.

I went insane with despair and ran into the lair of an Iraqi vampire who, as punishment for my sins, turned me into one of the undead, a vampire.

Then as a supernatural I learned that it was my nature to fight injustice.

Now, once more, I was bound by conscience to rescue Phaedra.

The last bit of her aura danced from her head to a spot over her heart.

I had to save her. I couldn’t let her go. I would do the one thing I swore not to.

My fangs sprouted and I drew close to her throat.

Phaedra wouldn’t die but she wouldn’t live either, not as a human.

I opened my mouth and let my fangs probe for the choicest spot to penetrate. Biting quickly, I guided my fangs through the skin and deep into her vein.

My nose sifted through the many smells: sweat, dust, and the fragrances of her blood, adrenaline, the rich cocktail of a young woman’s potent estrogen, and the bitterness of her medications.

Blood gushed into my mouth. A liquid banquet of pleasure flooded across my tongue, down my throat, and to every crevasse in my body. My belly felt the heft of the blood and my limbs flushed with viscous warmth.

I pumped recuperative enzymes into Phaedra, hoping that the sudden healing of her flesh would pull her from the brink.

I pulled my mouth away. Thick drops of blood clung to my lips and teeth.

Phaedra’s aura returned, the penumbra glowing cherry red.

Now to cheat death.

“Phaedra,” I whispered as if we were lovers sharing a pillow. “Open your mouth.”