Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) by Andrew Domonkos Page A

know this how?   Is there something you’re not telling me?”
     
    Zara sighed.   “You wouldn’t understand.   I just know okay?   Can you stop grilling me already?”
     
    Twig nodded and shut the window.   “I say we wait in the woods.   When Drake comes creeping up to the hotel we jump him.”   He swiftly pulled out a stake and jabbed the curtains a few times with it to demonstrate.
     
    “We jump him? That’s the plan?   You learn that from Ghostbusters?”
     
    “You got a better one?”   Twig asked, still practicing on the curtains.
     
    “Yes, I do actually.   Viper Canyon.”
     
    Twig sighed.   “Of course, it would have to be a canyon wouldn’t it.”
     
    “What are you talking about?”
     
    “My dream, I was chasing someone in a canyon, but it wasn’t Damon, it was some other creature.”
     
    Zara shook her head, annoyed.   “Is that what I am?   A creature ?”  
     
    “C’mon, I didn’t mean that. You’re not one of them.”
     
    “Oh?” Zara moved to the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror, letting the awkward silence hang between them.
     
    Twig followed her into the bathroom.   “Okay, maybe I’m being judgmental here; I just haven’t met too many vampires who were as friendly as you okay?”
     
    “Maybe because they are constantly being hunted.   Ever think about that?”
     
    “Yeah okay,” Twig said, throwing his hands up in the air, “use the old ‘It’s society’s fault’ routine.   Fine, but the guy in my dream was no saint.   He was being chased for a reason.   People don’t assemble posses to go chase down jaywalkers.”
     
    “Maybe,” Zara said.   “So it’s okay to listen to your feelings but mine are just an active imagination huh?”
     
    “You’re right,” Twig said, flopping down on the bed.    “Okay, okay.   But what’s the plan here?   In my dream it didn’t work out to well for us.   He was cornered and he still beat us.”
     
    Zara didn’t want to tell Twig about her brief encounter with Sam McDermont .   It would only make him more agitated and suspicious of her.   Likewise, she said nothing about the ghost she had met in the hallway who gave her a cryptic warning about a devil, or that she had had a vision where the world was burning.
     
    “You remember what you said about the Scout?”   Zara asked suddenly.   An idea was forming in her head.
     
    Twig gave her a tired and confused look.   “Refresh my memory.”
     
    “How next time you would fill the tank so that it would explode?”
     
    “Yeah…” Twig said warily.   “Where are you going with this?”
     
    “I’m thinking a truck loaded with enough explosives might be something Drake wouldn’t expect.”
     
    “You want to throw a truck at them?” Twig said, sitting up and leaving his jaw hanging open.   
     
    “More or less, yeah.   Why not?   We rig the truck to blow, lure them into the canyon and then one of us drops it on them.   As tough as these creatures are, I doubt they can survive an explosion, if it’s big enough that is.   We would need dynamite.”   She couldn’t help but smirk at the simple genius of the idea.
     
    Twig sat down on the bed.   “It’s actually not bad.   Better than trying to stake them, they’ll be expecting that and there are going to be too many to fight that way anyway.   But dynamite?   Where the hell are we going to get that?”
     
    Zara went to the bathroom and got her backpack and began to gather her clothes and stuff them into it.
     
    “What self-respecting wild-west town doesn’t have a bit of dynamite lying around?”
     

21.
     

     

     

     
    The soldier knocked on Mark’s window with a flashlight.   It took a minute for Mark to find the right button to lower the window.   “What’s up?” He asked, trying to appear casual in the stolen car.     
     
    “Road’s closed.   The wind is pushing the wildfires north and we’re evacuating all the towns