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The cell door flew open, yanked open by a lesser blood.
Torn and bruised from having run the gauntlet of gunfire and grenades, its
trials had done little to diminish its appetite. Its skin grey with filth and
splashed with mud, it offered few clues as to its gender, but its wide,
drooling mouth and sharp fangs put its intent quite beyond doubt.
Tirtuu swung, catching the vampire across the jaw, the nails in his makeshift
club biting deep into its face. He wrenched the weapon free and brought it
down again before his would-be predator had the chance to react. Its skull
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255
fractured with a sickening crack, but this failed to put a stop to the
vampire's resolution to feed. The lesser blood leaped at him, dazed, but
missed completely, its eyesight and balance left completely off-kilter by the
blow it took to the head.
Tirtuu screamed with a mixture of terror and desperation and brought his club
down a third and final time, shattering both the tick's skull and the club at
the same time.
Fortunately for Tirtuu, that seemed to do the trick. His attacker lay on its
belly, drooling and bleeding uncontrollably.
Seizing the opportunity presented to him, Tirtuu poked a cautious head out of
the door before stepping out into the corridor. He was loose!
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
The scavenger heard the west gate blow, and knew that in seconds flat the fort
would be swarming with slurps. His hackles would have raised higher if that
were physically possible. He hid in an alley by the Post Exchange as the tide
of hungry vampires coursed along the fort's pathways. Many of them were
wounded but they charged ahead regardless, as if whipped along by a taskmaster
whose punishments were far worse than anything the humans could concoct.
Choosing his moment carefully, the scavenger leaped into the midst of his
enemies, diving in like a kingfisher in search of its prey. He caught an
Ylesgaire by its arm and yanked hard, trying to wrench it away from the pack,
but he succeeded only in snapping the creature's arm off at the elbow.
Grimacing, the scavenger threw punches and kicks at the ticks that surged
around him, growing increasingly angry with his inability to capture a single
vampire for his own purposes. As his fury mounted, he felt tempted to stand
his ground and slaughter the slurps as they came at him, and though each blow
he landed succeeded in knocking its target down or back, the part of him still
capable of reasoning judged that sooner or later he might be overwhelmed.
Eager to salvage what left of his plan, the scavenger began to fight his way
back out of the horde. He had almost reached the edge when he felt a pair of
hands seize his left wrist and a set of fangs sink into his forearm. They felt
like mere
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pinpricks, barely sharp enough to pierce his skin. Startled, the scavenger
lashed out at his attacker.
"GEDDOFF! GEDDOFF ME NOW, Y'FILTHY SLURP BASTARD, OR I'LL WRING YER NECK!"
The lesser blood did not need telling twice. It released the scavenger at
once, but it was neither the shouting nor threat of imminent violence that
persuaded it to do so. The Ylesgaire clutched at its throat, choking, a smear
of the scavenger's blood still covering its foam-flecked lips. The vampire
wretched, heaved and collapsed, vomiting uncontrollably before disappearing
beneath its brethren's running feet. The scavenger rubbed at the
puncture-marks on his wrist as he moved back, thankful that most of the slurps
were too crazed to follow him and sought easier and tastier prey. Taking more
care this time, he snagged an Ylesgaire by the leg and dragged him bodily away
from the crowd.
The vampire's eyes rolled madly, and he had a starved, crazed look that until
recently the scavenger might have worn himself.
"Where are the big fangs?" demanded the scavenger.
"Mngaaaar," offered the lesser blood, fangs bared and drool running down his
chin.
The scavenger scowled, grasped his captive by the neck and slammed him into
the wall of the P.X. "Where are the big fangs?" he repeated.
"Gut you an' sk'n yooou an'..."
"Snap out of it!" The scavenger rammed the vampire into the wall again. He
refrained from trying to beat some sense into his prisoner. If his strength
was anything to go by, to do
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so would risk breaking the slurp's jaw, forcing him to grab another captive
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and he did not have time to do that again. He flung the Ylesgaire down the
alley and advanced angrily.
"Losin' my temper, slurp. Where. Are. The. Big. Fangs?"
The lesser blood cringed as the scavenger towered over him. "You're big fang.
You're big fang."
The scavenger had heard this before. "Don't fuck me about. Where are they?
Tell me or I'll break your arms and legs off."
"Lemyari?"
The scavenger rolled his eyes. "Yes. Lemyari. Where?"
"With us. In blood house now."
"Blood house?"
"Here. Blood house. Here."
The scavenger raised his head and sniffed the air. He could make out the
combined stench of thousands of unwashed lesser bloods, but here and there he
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