Carl didn't say a word, just gathered them up and herded them over to the motorhome and sat them down in the shade. Iced tea. Cigarettes. More cigarettes.

Finally: "What happened, bwana?" asked Carl Joplin.

Crow looked at him. "Is the plastique ready?"

Carl frowned. "That bad?"

"Carl, I'm not sure that's going to work."

"Oh. Well, we may have a little..." Carl stopped as the six policemen appeared.

"Kirk," said one of them, "we need to talk."

Kirk looked wearily in their direction, then stood up and joined them. They huddled up several steps away.

"They don't look happy," offered Cat.

"I don't blame them," replied Carl.

Crow sighed. "Okay. Let's have it."

"The Mayor & Co. are back and pissed."

"How pissed?"

"We're trapped."

Father Adam leaned forward. "Define 'trapped.'"

"Boxed in. Barricaded. Six square blocks of downtown. No in. No out. Just the team and those six cop buddies of the deputy's. And they're about to leave."

"They are?"

"Got to. The chief fired them by radio just about the time y'all went in the second time."

"But they stuck by us?" asked Father Adam.

Carl shrugged. "They wouldn't leave without Kirk."

Cat, remembering the deputy's javelin-toss of the pike, said, "I don't blame them."

They looked up as Kirk came back.

"How does it look, deputy?" Crow asked him.

Kirk and the other policemen exchanged looks before he spoke.

"I think they're going to try to arrest us in the next few minutes."

Carl groaned. "Aw, shit!"

The deputy went on. "They've got riot gear and tear gas and assault weapons and the rest of it. They're plenty serious."

Jack eyed him a moment. "So are we."

The policeman standing alongside Kirk didn't like the sound of this.

"Mr. Crow," said their spokesman, "you see, they got the idea somehow that you're planning to burn down the jail or something."

Jack blew a smoke ring. "That's the plan."

The policeman snorted. "That tears it! Kirk, you've gotta get away from these loonies. They're gonna get you busted or killed or - "

"I've seen a vampire, Wyatt," snapped the deputy. "And I think he's right."

Wyatt snorted again. "Right to blow up the jail?"

"Remember, Wyatt. I've seen a vampire. I think they oughta use an atomic bomb on the sonuvabitch."

And for a few moments no one spoke.

Finally, Wyatt exchanged another look with his fellow officers and spoke. "Okay, Kirk. This is your deal. Do what you gotta do. But they're not, gonna let you take out the jail - and we ain't gonna go along with you on the off chance that you're right."

Jack Crow nodded. "Understood, officer."

The cop glanced at Crow. "Mighty nice. But I was talking to the deputy." He turned back to Kirk. "Kirk, you gotta get away from here. Now. Take these guys with you if you feel you gotta. But get out.

"No," said Jack but the cop ignored him.

"Get away and regroup. Come back tomorrow, or maybe - "

"No!" barked Crow and stood up. "Look, officer, we can't leave and come back later. It'll be dark soon. They'll be out then. They'll be free. And these people here will be issuing warrants for our arrest...

"They already have."

"And outside of this zoo those warrants are going to look real and we'll go to jail and those beasts will find out where we're being held and if that place is a tin box like you have here or the Dallas County fucking Jail, they'll kick their way through the walls like you kick through a picket fence and they'll carve their way through anybody who tries to stop them and they will kill us!"

Crow stopped abruptly and stared at the other man and breathed hard and mad and for just an instant Cat was afraid the punches would start.

But they didn't.

Wyatt, the cop, just sighed and shook his head. Then he waved to Kirk, said, "Good luck, buddy," and then he and the rest of them were into their squad cars and gone.

"Alone at last," offered Cat.

"Not funny, Cherry," retorted Jack. "You and Felix and the deputy get off your asses and go see about this barricade business. See how tight the seal is. Maybe we can figure a way of buying some time." He paused, looked at the sun low in the sky. "What little there is of it."

"Don't bother," replied Kirk. "I know the emergency plans for this city. That seal is real tight." He eyed Crow defensively. "This really is a fine local department here."

Crow returned the look. "I believe you," he replied sincerely.

"So," said Father Adam, "we're stymied."

"Unless you're willing to start shooting peace officers," said the deputy.

Felix and Crow traded a glance.

"I don't shoot people anymore," said the gunman in a low, firm voice.

"It wasn't a serious statement," the deputy assured him quickly.

"Good," said Felix.

"Why," Kirk asked quickly, "don't you just set off the charges now? Before they can stop you?"

Jack shook his head. "It's more than one boom, deputy. We have to level the whole damn structure before they'll be driven out. We have to plant charges deep into the rubble usually, before they pop. It takes a while."

Carl Joplin leaned forward. "And how long you figure they'll wait, lawman, after they hear that first detonation?"

Kirk frowned. "They won't."

Carl nodded. "We got trouble."

"There must be some way to stop them," Adam insisted. The priest scanned the others' faces. "What stops the police?"

"You mean besides higher authority we can't get to in time?"

"Yes?"

Cigarettes were lit while everybody thought about it. Suddenly Cat laughed.

"What is it?" growled Joplin.

"The media," Cat piped.

"Huh?"

"We'll become terrorists!"

The scheme, hatched to complete detail in less than five minutes flat, was pure Cherry Cat. ROTLA, the Republic of Texas Liberation Army, would get on the horn to the Dallas - Fort Worth "media cretins" and describe their situation as a hostage crisis. True, they had no hostages. And the mayor and the chief knew better, but with helicopter Mini-cams less than fifteen minutes away, they just might hesitate a little, even after the first explosion, described to the media "as a symbolic act."

"We just tell 'em if they don't meet our demands we'll blow up a second building, like the courthouse there. Plus kill all the hostages."

"What demands?" Carl Joplin wanted to know.

"A complete list of our nonnegotiable ten-part program will be broadcast over the fascist police trenches at dawn tomorrow," replied Cat smoothly and he smiled.

The Team eyed him like he was from Venus.

"I like it!" twanged a deep voice from over Cat's shoulder.

The man they turned to see was about six feet tall, something under two hundred pounds... and relaxed. Totally and completely at ease, from the hands in his pants pockets to the half smile on his face to the ironic sparkle in his eyes. Felix tried to recall the last time he had seen a man so utterly sure of himself, so completely in control of his world.

And then he remembered - it was the last Texas sheriff he'd met.

"Boss!" cried Kirk happily. "When did you get in?"

"Coupla hours ago."

"Where have you been?"

"Been sniffing around."

"For what?"

The sheriff laughed and put a hand on his deputy's shoulder.

"To see which side of this mess is crazy."

Jack stepped forward. "What's the verdict, sheriff? Both?"

The sheriff laughed again. "Pretty much." He stuck out his hand. "How do you do, Mr. Crow. I'm Richard Hattoy."

The two shook hands.

"Glad to have you," said Jack. "You're just in time to be our first hostage."

Hattoy grinned. "They said you were a smartass."

"'They?' Who?"

"Far as I can tell, everybody who's ever met you. Kirk, you're riding with the last of the cowboys here. Been promoted, decorated, and busted down more times than you've had safe sex. And not just the military. CIA, DEA, National Security Agency, Treasury... Crow, can't you find anybody to put up with you?"

"Not so far," offered Cat.

Hattoy eyed him. "You'd be - "

"That's right, sheriff."

"You're still following him."

Cat grinned. "Don't let his rank fool you. We all drew straws and he got Kimosabe."

"That make you Tonto?"

Cat shook his head. "Court jester."

Hattoy looked him up and down. "That figures. Tell me, did you really give up a corporate law practice in Oklahoma City to paint spaceships?"

"It was Edmond, Oklahoma, and I was a science-fiction book-cover illustrator."

"Okay. What's the difference?"

Cat shrugged. "A hobbit or two."

"Uh-huh," muttered Hattoy and turned to the others. "Enough small talk. Let's get to it."

"What's up?" asked Kirk nervously.

"Relax, deputy. For once you picked right. Mr. Crow checks out with his former associates. Nobody liked him much. And nobody but nobody wants to hire him again - but they do trust him. And he's got a lot of very important people behind the scenes believing in his vampires."

"Unofficially, of course," added Jack.

"Unofficial is being generous, I'd say. But it is a backup, of a sort."

The sheriff paused, took his hands out of his pockets, and stretched mightily and yawned and they saw the pistol on his back right hip the size of a Buick.

"Okay," Hattoy went on, "So. There are vampires and you're their hunter on this continent is the story I get. If that's so, what's your problem?"

"The problem is your mayor and your police chief," said Crow, "and who knows how many others, are doing what the vampires tell them to do."

"Oh, yeah? Why?"

"They have them under a sort of spell, sheriff," said Father Adam.

Hattoy eyed the priest unhappily. "A 'spell'..."

Kirk spoke up. "I don't know what else you'd call it, Richard. We took two jailers outta here that were about bled to death and crying 'cause it was over."

"Okay... But is that any reason to blow up my goddamned jail and maybe the whole block with it?"

Crow shook his head. "Not possible, sheriff. The charges are too small. You might lose a next-door window or two."

Hattoy's tone was one of withering disgust. "'A window or two'?" he repeated. "What about fire? Shouldn't you have fire trucks all over the area?"

Jack Crow was starting to get hot. He didn't like the change in Hattoy's tone and he didn't like his antagonistic manner. Just when he thought he had finally found somebody, dammit, with brains enough to see!

"Yes, sheriff. You're right about fire trucks. But it wasn't my idea to seal them out of this area."

"No. You're just the one who's gonna risk a whole city block and maybe a whole downtown by going ahead anyway."

Jack met his eyes. "Yes."

"You take a lot on yourself, Crow. You think maybe that's why you got yourself kicked out of every fucking federal agency in the Congressional Registry?"

And that did it for Jack.

"Two things, sheriff," he all but barked. "One: you find me a president with enough balls to publicly recognize this nightmare and I'll be his janitor for life. Two: you could lose a couple of blocks. Or downtown. Or this entire one-horse town as far as I'm concerned and I'm not just real sure anybody this side of the interstate would notice, much less care! I'm not killing people, for crissakes! I'm killing old dead buildings. I'm trying to save the people in this dump. Or maybe you think the ones that died so far are AIDS victims?

"Look. We can kill two master vampires today. But only today. We know where they are. And they can't move for..." He looked up at the inexorable sun sinking lower and lower. Crow pointed at the horizon. "That's all the time we've got. It's a chance that won't come again.

"And it's a chance I'm fucking well gonna take if you send the marines in here! Risk? Risk? Lemme tell you something, Hattoy:

"Fuck your buildings and fuck your town and fuck your mayor and if you aren't going to help us - knowing we're right - just because you're afraid of a little risk... Well, then, fuck... you... too!"

Dead silence for three long beats.

Then the sheriff said, without taking his eyes off Crow, "I can see why you like him, Kirk. Let's go."

Kirk, dumfounded, managed, "Where to?"

"Well, I gotta save this here Jack Crow hero type and then get him outta town... before I have to kick his butt in half for talking to me that way. C'mon."

And then as they were walking away the sheriff looked at Felix, looked down at his hand, and Felix followed his gaze and only then realized he was carrying the squashed Browning.

"Having a little pistol trouble, boy?" whispered the sheriff and then he was gone.

Felix lifted his hand in front of his face and looked at what was left of the gun. In the sunlight the marks of the monster's fingers were clear. No machine could have vised like that.

Now when, he wondered, did I find time to pick this up? And when, he wondered next, glancing down at his second pistol back in its holster, did I put this one back?

Hell, he didn't even remember drawing the second gun.

When, he asked then, is this luck going to run dry?

In the meantime, Carl was arguing with Crow over the sheriff.

"... testing you, Jack. Picture this from his point of view for a second. It's one thing to call up some old favors and have you checked out. But this is his town. He had to read this face-to-face. And if you hadn't shown the balls to stand up to him for what you knew you had to do... Well, he probably wondered why you didn't detonate up front. Probably wondered why you tried to go inside in the first place."

"So do I," offered Cat quietly and Carl didn't like the look that passed briefly between Cat and Crow.

"He was trying to piss you off," Carl went on quickly. "I'm surprised you didn't see that one coming."

Jack lit a cigarette, looked tired. "You're right."

Carl's voice grew gentle. "Rough in there, huh?"

"If you hadn't opened that door," replied Jack Crow softly, "or if you had waited just five more minutes to open it, we'd all be dead."

"Felix," said Cat. "Show him the gun."

Felix tossed the lump to Carl and sat down on the curb.

Carl caught it and drew in a sharp breath. "It did this?"

Felix lit a cigarette and nodded without looking up.

Carl shook his head. "Wow," he muttered softly. "Strong."

Jack's voice sounded odd: "Yeah. Strong. Unreal strong. Strong like we never imagined."

"Something," muttered Cat, "for you to look forward to."

"Huh?" asked Carl.

Cat lit a smoke of his own. "Haven't you heard? Jack's going to be a vampire."

"Not funny, Cherry," growled Jack.

"Not meant to be, buddy," was the response.

"What is all this?" Carl wanted to know.

"It's a fact," drawled Cat. "We just heard from his recruiter."

"You talked to her?"

"Well, for one thing we mostly just listened and for another thing, it wasn't her. It was him."

"The man?"

"The man. And I don't think he came up because he was thirstier than she was, Carl. I think he came up to kill us and take Jack here and make him a vampire."

Then they told Carl about the exploding elevator.

And about the crossbow.

Carl looked pale. "He actually caught it?"

Jack nodded.

"At what range?"

"Twelve feet."

Carl stared. "Lord!" he whispered.

"'Gods' is the way he put it," said the previously silent Father Adam. The priest's voice was hard. "He said they were gods and he said we were fools with wooden stakes. He said Jack was the pope's altar boy."

Carl blinked. "Anything else?"

From Cat: "He doesn't like white crosses - but they can't kill him. He's not afraid of... what was it? Garlic? He said he'd break Felix's back or something if he even pointed a gun at him."

"What did Felix do?"

"Shot him anyway."

"Way to go, Felix!" gushed Carl.

And Felix, from his seat on the curb, turned and gave him a dead look.

And then nobody wanted to talk about it anymore.

"Enough of this," cried Cat suddenly. "What about the sheriff?"

"Yeah," said Jack, "we better get moving."

And everyone, save Cat, seemed to move at once.

Cat stared at them. "You seem pretty sure."

Carl grinned, shrugged. "He said he'd handle it, Cherry."

Cat frowned. "He's only one guy."

Carl grinned some more. "He's a Texas sheriff."

"And he has Kirk with him," added Jack, his own grin faint but still there.

"Great," drawled Cat dryly. "That makes two of 'em. What are they gonna do? Arrest them?"

Carl stopped what he was doing, said, "Probably."

"The mayor? The chief of police? All his cops?"

"If he has to. Cat. He's a Texas sher - "

"I know. I know. You keep saying that. So, he can handle it. Just like that?"

"Just like that."

And for the most part, that's just what happened. Team Crow never did get the details. All Kirk would say was some mumbling about the sheriff walking up to the barricades and telling 'em to break it up.

Twenty minutes later the Team had fire trucks and firemen and ambulances and police protection and demolition advisers the chief had brought in originally to stop them and all sorts of experts on local buildings like the jail. They even had structural plans and advice on how to blow it, and Carl and Cat did, in fact, move three of the charges a couple of yards.

Hattoy showed up in time to press the detonator personally, saying, "All my life I've wanted to kaboom one of these things." This was just smoke, of course, to hide his adding another layer of his personal authority on the event in case of future hassle.

They blew it once, twice, three times, in layers. Then they blew the rubble. Then they blew it some more before the female emerged, rocketing upward in a hail of bricks and screeching. She popped on Adam's side and the priest came through once more, taking only two quick steps on the uneven surface before delivering a clean bisecting shot.

He didn't appear until a half hour before dusk, a fullthroated scarlet fountain of hatred and fury. His screams were ear-splitting. His flames were supernaturally bright.

But in daylight it didn't matter. Jack had seen it all before. He did get close enough to recognize the monster who knew his name before punching the crossbow through the burning chest. But there was nothing special about the shot. Or the end.

"When you're a vampire, Crow..." it had said.

Jack watched the ashes burn all the way down, then whispered, "Not today, little god."

He stood there awhile, lit and smoked a cigarette before moving. When he finally turned away, toward the Team now milling with the sheriff and his people, the realization struck deep.

My God, that was close.

And then: Why did I try to go inside? I almost killed everyone! What was I trying to do?

Today was three years, three months, and some-odd days of this madness.

Shit.

"Thank God Felix can shoot..."