Crossroads by Jeanne C. Stein Page B

fear is left. And dread for what comes next.
    I drain the last of her blood, feel the shudder as her soul leaves the body, feel my hatred ebb with the final flickering spark of her life.
    She has died like her victims, alone and afraid.
    It is just.
    The metamorphosis begins the instant the soul leaves the body. The young woman I held in my grasp is an old, withered shell by the time she hits the ground. It is the way. Drained of blood, the vampire body reverts physically to its mortal counterpart. I stand looking down at an old lady well past her one hundredth birthday.
    My metamorphosis begins, too. The human Anna comes back, slowly, reluctantly.
    Slowly. Infusion of blood temporarily warms a body that is even now returning to its natural state. The warmth fades too quickly.
    Reluctantly. With the return to human form comes rational thought. I will not forget what I have done.
    Twice.
    I have killed. Two monsters. One mortal, one not.
    I have no regrets. They both deserved to die. I only wish killing didn’t come so easily.
    With rational thought comes something else—awareness of the pain that racks my side. I was right. A gunshot can slow a vampire down. Especially one from the big .45 Max brought for me. Slowly, carefully, I draw myself up, stretch gingerly, willing the healing process to move more quickly, to numb this ache.
    “Anna!” Max’s voice. “Where are you?”
    I rouse myself and step over the vampire’s body. I realize I never learned her name. Does it matter? Not now.
    Max is fifty yards out, moving toward me at a run.
    “Here.”
    I let him find me. He has his gun in his hand and he is breathing hard. When he sees the crumpled remains on the ground, he turns to me, startled, bewildered.
    “Who is that?”
    “Your coyote.”
    He kneels for a closer look. “She’s an old woman. How could she possibly—”
    “What you’re looking at are her mortal remains. You were right in suspecting a vampire was behind the attacks. She was with a couple when I found her. I let them go.”
    “I know.” Max holsters his gun. “I saw them run by.”
    “Did they make it?”
    “From what I could see.”
    “Good.”
    Max switches his gaze from the corpse to me. For the first time, he sees the blood soaking my shirt, on my thighs.
    “You’re hurt?”
    “No.” Not much anyway. He couldn’t have brought a .22? I don’t think I’ll tell him I let myself get shot with his gun. “It looks worse than it is.”
    He nods. Luckily, he knows how it is with vampires.
    “What should we do with that?” He points to the thing on the ground.
    “Bury it.”
    Max swings his flashlight in an arc. “I didn’t bring a shovel. What can we use?”
    I spy a flat piece of rock and a long, sturdy branch kiln dried by the sun. I retrieve them. “It will take work, but we can use these.”
    I hand him the branch to begin scraping away sand and follow after, scooping out a hole with the rock. My side screams in protest but within fifteen minutes, we have a hole big enough and deep enough to cover the corpse. I grab her by the arm to throw her in.
    “She’s really dead, right?” Max asks.
    “You mean is she going to rise up in three days and come after us?” I prod at the body with my foot. “No. She’s gone.”
    The remains land in the hole with the brittle thud of desiccated flesh and bone.
    We set to work, shoveling the sand back in, tamping it down with our feet, setting a layer of rock and debris over the grave. To protect it from scavengers.
    A flashback. Another vampire corpse. Another grave dug in the desert. Another pair of hands working beside mine.
    Lance.
    A shudder racks my body.
    Max’s shoulder is so close to mine, he feels my body jerk. He pauses. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
    The vampire answers from the darkest place in my soul. “It’s nothing. I just walked on someone’s grave.”
     
     
    MAX RECOGNIZES ONE OF THE GUARDS AT THE BORDER crossing. They exchange a few words in Spanish and