The Iron in Blood

I dived through the one of lit windows downstairs, ignoring the glass shards that fell in a shower around me and sliced through my skin. I rolled as I fell and came up shooting. A vampire stood frozen in shock in one of the corners of the room. I shot him in the face, and put another shot just above that one. He went down. Another two stood framed in the doorway that led out into the rest of the house. I shot the first in the head, but the second dived sideways. I scrambled after him, and put a bullet through his spine as he scuttled away. His legs crumpled, and I shot him twice in the head as I stepped over him. Six down, five to go.

There was a sudden explosion as the grenades at the back door went off. I hurried towards the sound, and found three vampires lying on the floor, still very much alive and writhing around. One had lost an arm in the blast. I shot him first, then put two rounds into each of the others' heads. They stopped moving. Six rounds left, two vampires.

I froze for a second, listening. There was an almost imperceptible squeak in the room above me as someone trod cautiously on ageing floorboards. I tilted my head, and waited. There it was again. I triangulated the likely origin of the sound and emptied the rest of the magazine in that direction. There was a muffled thud, but I was already racing up the nearest staircase, ramming home a new magazine as I ran. I was up those stairs in two seconds, and in the room within one more. An emaciated vampire lay on the floor, his left leg curled unnaturally under his body as he hissed his defiance at me. Three rounds in the face and he was quiet. Right. One more. I stood still and listened. Nothing. I went downstairs and out the back door. And there it was. The scent of a frightened vampire moving at speed towards the thick woodland that lay to the north of the property. I couldn't even see him anymore. He was long gone. He must have legged it past those three casualties while I was shooting at a creaking floorboard. I knew I wouldn't have time to go after him.

I reached out to Rebecca's mind again. Still fairly calm, but something was worrying her. Nothing too urgent yet. I decided to deal with the vampires first.

I went through each of the rooms of the house and methodically twisted the heads off the necks of the vampires. It was a messy job, especially since I'd spent the last few minutes shooting dirty great holes in those heads. I put all ten heads in a couple of carrier bags I found in the kitchen, poured lighter fluid from under the sink over them and set them alight. Resurrect that.