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"He left us in Africa!" Serge screamed, and then he started stamping his own feet, just as the remaining reindeer had done before taking off. "What are we supposed to do in Africa?"
"You can be useful," Ingrid told them.
She slid down off Rudolph and gave him a mighty slap on his rump.
The great beast started running down the dirt road, and in only a few yards, he was airborne.
"Useful?" Pasha said it as if it were a bad taste in his mouth.
"Come on, boys," she encouraged them, as she donned her clothing again. "Someday, you'll thank me. "
Before she showed them the better way, she got down on her haunches to say both hello and goodbye to her family. There was whimpering on both sides, from her and from them. There were licks and nuzzles, sniffing and pawing, but none of them lingered, not Ingrid, and not the dogs. For her, it was too painful to go through a farewell a second time. For them, there was hunting to do, to compensate for the loss of the splendid feast they had missed.
When she rose to her feet, Ingrid slapped off the dust.
She didn't glance behind her to see the dogs go, but she could hear them, could feel the pounding they made on the earth. If she looked, she thought her heart might brea
k again.
"Follow me. " She started to walk but then stopped. "No, on second thought, I'll follow you. Go that way. "
When they got back to where her gun was buried, she used her cell phone to call her assistant. "Damian. Yes, I'm fine. No, I didn't locate them. What do you know about the poachers?" She listened for a few moments, then said, "Come get me. "
Under the full moon, she pointed the vampire cousins toward the south.
"Keep walking. In about twenty-five miles, you'll come upon a band of soldiers. Paramilitary. They're awful people. They force young boys to join them. They rape women, cut off limbs, kill everything in their path. Last month, they murdered a lowland gorilla. They're all yours, boys. "
"Twenty-five myiles?" Pasha whined.
"To a smorgasbyord," Ingrid reminded him, with a wicked smile.
When she could barely see the vampires in the distance, her assistant screeched to an angry stop beside her. Ingrid opened the door of the jeep, climbed in. Her face still held a remnant of the smile she had given the vampires. When her assistant got a glimpse of it, he caught his breath. Her face reminded him of how wolves looked after they had triumphed in a hunt and kill.
Damian, having nursed grievances all night and having intended to complain about them, felt the hairs rise on the backs of his arms. Instead of speaking, he shut his mouth, and drove home.
"Let's be Santa Helpers," Serge mocked bitterly as they trudged in the darkness. "Let's go join up with dear old Santa Claus and get ourselves a lifetime's supply of blood bank. "
"Okay, so maybe my plan didn't work out perfectly. "
"Perfectly! How about not at all?! How about nearly getting us killed by wild dogs and a werewolf, not to mention the world's oldest vampire?"
Their supernatural vision picked out a campfire in the distance.
"I think," Pasha said, soothingly, "that this night is not over yet. "
"It better not be. I'm starved. " As the cousins started to run, covering yards where humans could have covered only inches, Serge turned his pale, handsome, hungry face toward Pasha and yelled into the African night, "And don't you ever try to talk to me about the Easter Bunny!"
At the campfire, hearing something strange, men reached for guns that were not armed with silver bullets.
Chapter Thirteen
Milk and Cookies
Rob Thurman
Rob Thurman is the author of several books making up the Cal Leandros series: Nightlife, Moonshine, Madhouse, and Deathwish (to be released in the spring of 2009); and of a second series (as yet untitled) to debut in the fall of 2009. Rob lives in Indiana, land of many cows, demanding deer, and wild turkey as savage as any wolf, Were or otherwise. Protecting the author's house and home is a hundred-pound rescue husky with ice blue eyes, teeth straight out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of crawling under the kitchen table and peeing on himself when visitors arrive. Reach the author at www. robthurman. net.
Christmas sucked.
