[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]dingy, dirty window.
He slammed into a deserted room. The floor was filthy. Rolling in muck, he stood and darted out of the
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window frame and pressed himself against the farthest wall.
His hand was bleeding, but him being a vampire and all, he could work around it.
Outside, across the alley, Dru screamed. Spike clenched his teeth and balled his right fist. In that
moment, as waves of rage and helpless fury roared through him, he transformed. His face became sharp
and angled, his teeth, fanged and razor-sharp. His eyes glowed.
She screamed again. He went into overdrive, casting about for weapons in the half-light of the darkened
room. He was in some kind of storehouse. Against the opposite wall, there were several cans of what
might be petrol. On the floor, mixed in with pieces of wood and rotten bits of newspapers, the occasional
rag.
Directly beside him was a portable cooking stove. But more important, a pack of matches. Ironically,
they were from the caf they d just fled.
All he needed was a bottle.
Which was summarily thrown the broken window.
Thanks, mate, he murmured.
He dropped to his stomach and crawled over to the bottle, ignoring the cuts in his hands as the shards of
glass bit into his flesh. He grabbed the bottle, rolling over to avoid the fresh scattershot of bullets.
For the first time a stroke of luck: There was kerosene in the cans.
As quickly as he could, Spike sloshed the bottle full. He grabbed one of the rags and stuffed it inside,
trailing a decent length out the top.
Some thoughtful soul had left a pack of matches beside the stove. Spike lit the dry end of the rag, then
hurled it back out the window.
A chorus of shouts rose up, followed by a fairly decent explosion. While that was going on, Spike snuck
a peek out the window.
What he saw horrified him. They had strung Dru up by a lamppost, and they were trying to set her lovely
dress on fire. She was clutching at the rope around her neck and kicking furiously. His firebomb had
burst perilously close to the dainty bare toes of the left foot of his beloved.
Dru, he whispered hoarsely.
Her eyes were bulging; she was clutching at the rope.
It was then that he saw that they were dousing her with water from small bottles probably holy water,
then and rubbing her feet and legs with something. The stench came at him: garlic.
They were attempting to poison her on top of everything else.
He threw back his head and growled savagely. The sound was lost in the shouts and jeers of the mob as
they tortured his poodle.
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He ran back to the cans of kerosene. He began unscrewing their lids and throwing them out the window.
Most of the crowd had forgotten about him; he avoided the few potshots aimed at him and kept at his
business.
Halfway through dumping the kerosene, he found one more empty glass bottle.
Yes, yes! he exulted, kissing the bottle.
Suddenly someone shouted. Someone else answered. He looked up.
They were pointing to his puddle of kerosene and looking not so very delighted.
Some of the buggers began shooting at him. Others hurled bricks and stones. Plus a half-eaten piece of
bread, which he strangely found rather insulting.
He filled the glass bottle with fuel, stuffed in a rag, and made a kamikaze leap out the window. Like
someone in Manchester United, he hook-kicked the bomb. It went up, up, and the barbarians, realizing
what it was, began to scatter.
The ones who didn t, Spike plowed into. He slammed his fingers under the breastbone of one short,
pudgy man, ripping it free as the man contracted into a ball of pain. Another, he slammed in the Adam s
apple. He thrust his elbow into the gut of another, then pushed him as hard as he could; the toppling
fellow knocked over two or three others, who went sprawling.
The bomb had by then landed, and the pools of flammable liquid were going up like Roman fountains.
Spike clawed and bit and fought his way to Dru as the fires raged. Her poor little feet were raw and
bloody; her skin where the holy water had touched it were burnt black.
She stared down at him, her lips moving, no sound coming out.
Hold on, baby! he shouted.
He grabbed a gun from someone, shot that person with it, and then aimed it at the rope hanging above
her head. He missed it by a mile. Tried again. Another mile.
He grabbed a Russian soldier and gestured. Shootsky, he ordered the man, his fangs at the man s
neck in case the bloke got the bright idea of shooting Dru.
The soldier was smart. He understood exactly what Spike wanted, and on the first attempt he shot her
down. Spike s pet landed in a fragile heap like a wispy, broken moth. Spike ran to her, but not before he
tore out the throat of the Russian soldier and threw him to the ground. As soon as he made sure Dru was
all right, he was going to commit a bit of a massacre.
No sense leaving any of them alive.
No sense whatsoever.
One thing was for certain: It was time to leave off searching for Angelus. Now, if he could just convince
Dru of that, they both might actually live to see a few more sunsets.
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He figured that would be a more difficult task than killing all these bleedin goulash-eaters. But if any man
was up to the task, it was Spike.
So: No more Angelus. As far as Spike was concerned, the bastard was dead.
He would never tell Dru, but the fact was, Spike realized he was just fine with that.
In fact, he bloody well hoped it was true.
Angelus was trouble.
ACT THREE
Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvdti
Blazen, dit opily clovc o tom umeji povodeti.
Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee.
Romanian proverb
Angel reached Tina s apartment half on instinct and the other two-thirds on adrenaline. Which,
theoretically, should not have been coursing through his body at the moment. But he was literally dizzy
with worry for her.
He should have stopped her. Dodged the lamp more quickly; hell, tackled her if he d had to. If anything
had happened, if something . . .
He couldn t even go there.
So he ran down the hall.
Her door was ajar, and his hopes exploded.
He tried to tell himself that in her haste to leave, she d left the door open.
But he knew.
He steeled himself as he went inside, but he knew.
There she was, on the floor, next to the sofa bed. Stone dead.
Her throat torn open, her blood drained.
Still, he raced to her and checked her pulse. There was none, and he had known there wouldn t be.
He had failed her.
He might as well have killed her himself.
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A vampire did this, he thought.Why be surprised? There were practically as many vampires in Los
Angeles as there had been in Sunnydale. But Tina . . . and all that evil and monstrousness . . .
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