Heart thudding, Larry gripped the knob. He tried to twist it, but there was no give. "Locked."

Pete tapped the muzzle of his revolver against the end of the tire iron in his belt.

Larry pulled the bar out. Holding it with both hands, he forced the wedge into the crack between the lock plate and the door frame. He looked at Pete.

"Well, go on."

"I don't know."

"Well, shit."

"We shouldn't be here."

"Don't go pussy on me now."

"Maybe we ought to just go shooting like we told the gals."

"The book, man. The book. Uriah's the missing piece, remember?"

He murdered me. Bonnie's voice again. You can't let him get away with it. He's got to pay.

"Okay," Larry muttered.

He put his weight against the iron bar. He felt it move a bit sideways, digging into the wood. There were soft crunchy sounds.

Then came the blare of a car horn.

He froze.

"Uh-oh," Pete said.

Larry jerked the bar free and spun around. "That was our car!"

Thirty-four

Pete in the lead, they raced down the stairs. The wood clamored and creaked under their pounding boots. The loose planks across the landing jumped and clattered. If the horn was still honking, Larry couldn't hear it.

His stomach was a ball of ice. His chest ached. He could barely breath. There was a tightness in his throat like a scream trying to force its way out.

Somebody was out there. Uriah? Curious strangers? A gang? Cops?

"Don't go running out with a gun in your hand," he gasped as he rushed after Pete to the front doors.

Pete stopped. Larry, at his back, grabbed his shoulder.

"Take it easy," Pete whispered, and eased the door open a crack. A strip of daylight jabbed Larry's eyes. "I don't see anybody."

"A car or anything?"

"Just yours." The daylight spread. Pete stuck his head through the gap and looked from side to side like a kid getting ready to cross a busy road. "Nope. Nothing." He holstered his revolver, swung the door wide and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Larry, just behind him, squinted at the bright red Mustang. He saw no one. He looked both ways. The street was deserted.

"The horn didn't honk itself," he muttered.

"Tell me something I don't already know."

"I don't like this at all."

"Join the crowd."

"You think he's behind the car?"

"Let's find out." Eyes on the car, Pete sidestepped his way to the middle of the street. There, he saw something that made him scowl and shake his head. He dropped to his knees, set down the flashlight and peered beneath the car. Rising, he stepped close to the driver's side and glanced through the windows. He took a deep breath. He looked at Larry. Nobody here," he said. "But we've got a flat."

"Oh no. Jesus." His head seemed to go numb inside. His legs felt wobbly as he staggered into the street.

The Mustang's left front tire was mashed against the pavement.

Crouching, Pete fingered its sidewall. "Slashed."

"He doesn't want us to leave," Larry said. His voice sounded far away.

"Either that, or he's just pissed off. You've got a spare, don't you?"

"Yeah."

Pete stood up and turned his back to the car. Eyes narrow, he scanned the storefronts across the street. "He's probably over there laughing at us."

"Let's change the tire and get out of here." "This is our chance to get him."

"It might not even be Uriah."

"Bet it is."

"Well, I'm gonna change the damn tire." Larry dug the car keys out of his pocket and stepped toward the trunk. "Keep an eye out, huh?"

"Uriah, all right," Pete said. "And I'll bet he knows we're the guys who took his stiff. That'd explain why he slashed the tire. Wants to keep us here and nail us."

Larry moaned. He opened the trunk, leaned in and took out the jack.

"Maybe he thinks we're vampires."

"Jesus, Pete."

"I'm serious. What if he thinks we already pulled the stake and she bit us?"

"It's daytime, for one thing."

"So?"

Larry lifted the spare tire, swung it away from the trunk and lowered it to the pavement. As he rolled it toward the front of the car, he said, "Vampires can't survive in the sunlight."

"Maybe that's just movie crap."

"It's in all the books."

"You believe everything you read?"

"Of course not." He let the tire fall and hurried to get the jack. "I don't believe in vampires, for godsake."

He imagined Bonnie laughing at that, shaking her head, her golden hair swaying.

"But Uriah believes in them," Larry went on. "He believes in using crucifixes and garlic and stakes." Setting down the jack beside the spare, he reached up. Pete handed him the tire iron. "So he must know that vampires can't be out in the sunlight the way we are."

"Unless he knows different."

Larry pried the hubcap loose. It fell and clanked on the pavement.

He covered one of the nuts with the lug wrench. He yanked on the bar.

It slipped off and he stumbled backward.

"I'd better do it," Pete said. "You keep watch."

Larry gave him the tire tool, turned his back to the car and scanned the buildings across the street. A few of the doors stood open. Some of the windows were boarded, but others weren't.

"One down," Pete said.

The hubcap rang as a nut dropped into it.

"Besides," Larry said, "if he thinks we're vampires, he'd have to kill us with stakes."

"Good point. No way, right?" Another nut rang into the hubcap. "He must think he has a chance, though, or why the flat tire?" Pete grunted. Seconds later a third nut hit the hubcap. "Three down, one to go."

"Maybe it wasn't Uriah. Could've been anyone. A hermit, or somebody. Maybe doesn't like strangers, did it to teach us a lesson."

The last nut clanged into the hubcap.

"You got the emergency brake on?"

"Yeah." Larry looked around. Pete, on his knees, was putting together the jack. He dropped lower to study the undercarriage, then shoved the jack beneath the car and started pumping it up with the tire iron. The car began to rise.

The arrow missed Pete's hat, skimmed above the hood of the Mustang, flew across the sidewalk and thunked into the hotel wall.

"What the-" Pete blurted.

Larry whirled, crouching and drawing his gun. Nobody. Just shadows beyond the doors and windows.

"Shit! That's a fuckin' arrow!"

Then Pete was on his knees beside Larry, arm out, sweeping his revolver slowly from side to side.

"Where'd it come from?"

"Over there someplace."

"You were supposed to keep watch, man. Thing coulda killed me!"

"What're we gonna-"

Larry still saw nobody. But he saw the next arrow. It shot out of the gloom beyond a window directly across the street. The big display window of a shop, partly crisscrossed by weathered boards, mostly open.

"Pete!" he shouted as he threw himself at the pavement and the arrow hissed by. A moment later he heard it punch into something.

Then his ears were pounded. He felt as if they were being slapped hard by open hands determined to destroy his eardrums.

Huge, horrible explosions.

Pete's .357 magnum.

Pete was on his knees, eyes narrow, teeth gritted, arms straight out and jerking upward as another blast struck the air. Larry fought an urge to cover his ears. Facing forward, he was hit by another explosion and saw a hole get punched through the wall below the window. There were three or four other holes nearby, spaced about a foot apart.

He started firing, aiming to the left of Pete's holes, making new ones he could barely see, stitching a line toward the open door. His gun made sharp, flat bangs that seemed insignificant compared to Pete's thundering weapon. But he knew the .22 magnums were strong enough to penetrate the wood. If the walls inside weren't lined with plaster or Sheetrock, his bullets would be flying through the room.

His hammer clanked on a spent round.

"Reload, reload!" he heard Pete yell through the ringing in his ears. He rolled onto his side and started to eject the casings.

Pete, still on his knees, was shoving fresh cartridges into his cylinder. Then he was rising, rushing the window.

"Wait!" Larry shouted. Though his gun was still empty, he scurried up and ran for the door.

Lot of use I'll be, he thought.

He half expected Pete to dive through the window and come up inside firing like a movie cowboy. But his friend proved more cautious, and ducked below the windowsill and peeked in. Larry slammed his shoulder against the doorframe. Pressing his back to the wall, he flicked the last two shells from his revolver.

"I don't see him," Pete said.

"Think we got him?"

"I don't know." Pete dropped lower, turned around and squatted, seeming to sag against the wall as he stared into the street.