Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

"No bullets," Remo said, nodding toward the revolver, whose exposed cylinder chambers were like tiny caverns. It might as well have been a pencil sharpener. He glanced around the production room disinterestedly. He wondered if there were more vampires hiding close by. Waiting to pounce.

"Don't test me," Elvira McGlone said. The gun-waggling had become more pronounced.

"And don't kid me," Remo returned, reaching over to pluck the weapon from her hand. He flipped open the cylinder and shook it like a saltshaker. Nothing came out. "See? Empty." He tossed the gun away.

Elvira McGlone started backing away, like a toy doll whose batteries have been inserted upside-down. She whipped two Waterman pens from a pocket of her mannish tailored suit and crossed them protectively before her.

"You keep away!" she shrieked, pushing back into the conveyor belt. In her haste, she tripped over a plastic rubbish barrel and landed on her best side. Her backside. One of the pens rolled away out of sight.

"Don't sweat it," said Remo, who, until this last manifestation of fright, had thought she couldn't possibly become any more repulsive. "I'm not one of them."

"I don't care! Go away!" she said, groping her way to her feet.

Remo reached down and took Elvira McGlone by the back of the neck. He hauled her to her feet, working her neck vertebrae with hard fingers until her body relaxed to nearly its normal level of tension.

The fear drained from her eyes.

"Let's have it," Remo urged.

"They've been stalking me for days," she said, catching her breath. "I don't dare trust anyone."

"Check out the fingernails," Remo said. He offered his hands to her, nail-side up.

She studied them cautiously, her breathing still heavy. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "Maybe you are normal."

"If I wasn't, you'd be one of them by now," Remo pointed out.

"Okay, okay. You've sold me. just what the hell is going on here?" she demanded, her voice a hoarse whisper. She peered over the top of the conveyor belt behind her.

"Would you believe me if I told you we're surrounded by vampires?" he asked.

She shook her head. "A week ago, I would have thought you were as flaky as everyone else around here. But now. . ." she composed herself. "I walked in on them while they were turning some of the tourists Gideon brings through here into human slumgullion. That Mercy woman was at the center of it all. When she saw me, I ran. I've tried to get out, but they're watching all the doors. I've kept out of sight, changing hiding places when I can to fool them."

"They're not very bright," Remo pointed out.

Elvira McGlone nodded her head toward where her pistol had skittered away in the shadows.

"But they're dangerous," she said wryly, "and you just tossed away our only protection."

"It was empty," Remo said, moving toward the stairs.

"That's because I took out six of them the first day," she explained. When he glanced back at her, she shrugged and added, "I worked five years in a New York ad agency." She followed him cautiously. "My survival skills are as sharp as a U.S. Ranger's."

Remo hadn't gone up four steps before he spotted a small dark figure hiding behind one of the upright metal banisters. It was the emaciated tiger-stripe cat he had seen during his tour of the Three-G plant with Mary Melissa Mercy.

It cringed in the darkness, its back arched, its mangy fur slowly rising like porcupine quills.

Remo reached out to the creature. "You tried to warn me about her, didn't you, tiger?" he said gently.

There was a gleam in the reflected moonlight. Something was wrong. It was the look in the animal's eyes. It was the same dead-eyed stare he had been given by his gyonshi attackers.

The cat hissed and spat at Remo, lashing out with its poisoned claws.

Remo allowed the animal to bound away. It flew backward off the staircase and into the production area, landing roughly against an opened electrical panel.

The panel sparked at the cat's impact, casting a bright blue aura over the four enormous stainless-steel cauldrons on the main floor.

The cat dropped to the floor, severely singed but alive. It struggled, finally found its paws, and limped off into the darkness.

Remo could smell burnt fur. But there was something else. The orange smoke. Very faint. Not quite as much as from a human host. It dribbled up from the cat's tiny nostrils.

The thin cloud rose eerily in the moonlight, then dissipated.

Remo nodded his head in silent understanding as he mounted the stairs double-time. Elvira followed.

They found themselves alone on the second level, overlooking the main production floor. The catwalk extended before and behind them into the shadows.

"An old Chinese man," Remo said, turning to Elvira McGlone. "Have you seen him?"

"Yes," she replied. "He spends most of his time with that Mercy ghoul. I think they're in the security room." She leveled a blood-red fingernail and added, "The metal door at the far end of the walkway."

"Thanks. Now go back to the spot where we met until I come back for you." Remo was just about to move down the catwalk when Elvira spoke, her voice low and husky.

"There's one more thing."

"What?" Remo said distractedly, hesitating.

"This." With a flick of her thumb the artificial nail popped off her index finger, revealing the chopped-off gyonshi guillotine edge. Before the red crescent press-on nail hit the floor, Elvira McGlone had slashed her hand in a perfect diagonal, opening Remo's shirt from shoulder to stomach.

Eyes wide, Remo jumped back, only to find himself pinned against the railing, the production floor below him. He looked down at himself. No blood. She hadn't broken the skin. Elvira slashed out again. Remo leaned back farther, ready to grab her wrist as she withdrew. He never got the chance.

The metal railing creaked and gave way. Too late, Remo noticed the shiny bright slits that the hacksaw had made at either end of the railing section. He toppled over backward and plunged toward a huge stainless-steel cauldron far below that was filled with shadows-and who knew what else.

His mind exploded with a sudden grisly recollection.

Didn't the gyonshi also boil their victim's blood in big pots before drinking it?

Chapter 24

At Folcroft Sanitarium, Dr. Lance Drew was losing a patient.

"He isn't responding!" The replacement nurse's voice was full of tension and frustration. The heart monitor, which had been beeping like a video game with a nine-year-old Nintendo master at the controls, went quiet.

"Pressure's bottomed out. He's arrested!"

Dr. Drew grabbed the twin paddles from the portable heart unit next to the bed. "Clear!" he ordered. Beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. As one, the medical team jumped back from the bed. The doctor placed the paddles on the pale, thin chest and shocked the heart muscle. He looked up expectantly at the monitor. Still flat-lined.

"Nothing," said the second doctor.

Dr. Drew clenched his jaw determinedly. "Clear!" he commanded again. He shocked the heart a second time.

There was an echoing blip on the nearby monitor. Another. It was followed by a string of beeps.

"Pulse is climbing!" called the nurse. "Heart rate increasing!"

The body on the bed arched its back as if in pain, and began spewing a thin cloud of saffron smoke from its mouth and nose.

"My God, what is that?" the nurse asked, incredulous.

Dr. Drew gripped the paddles more tightly. He stared at the orange smoke as it rose in the air, spread across the acoustical ceiling tiles, and faded in the glow of the fluorescent light. He shook his head in awe.

The second doctor looked up from the monitoring equipment. It was beeping steadily now. "Heart rate's back to normal," he breathed. He glanced toward the others, a look of intense relief on his young face. "He's out of it."