When I awoke, all was black. Was this death, then?

No, the smell of pine oil was too great. And there was something greasy and wet pressed against my face. It took me a time to focus. Clearly night had fallen.

It took some moments more to rise to sitting and to wiggle my arm around in the right way to take a grip on the hunk of metal that had impaled my back. It took even more grunting and groaning and time for me to draw the thick sliver from my flesh. The thing was the size of a spearhead, and it was dug so deeply that the tip of it had emerged just beneath my left breast. How it had not pierced my heart I do not know.

It was an enormous relief freeing the damn thing. But where the fuck was I? Looking around ... I was in a broom closet? Heavens, I knew healthcare was a mess, but is this how they treated the uninsured?

No, there was no mystery. Somehow I'd crawled into this closet to hide. As I peeked out now, I realized the hallway outside was empty and the lights were off. This section of the hospital wasn't open.

The hallway floor was a mess of smeared blood, and I then followed that blood trail, my blood trail, back to its source. Along the way, I snagged a hospital scrub top, changed, and with a second one rubbed and scraped my face and arms free of the layers of blood that encrusted them.

I needed to find Fallon. I refused even to contemplate that the doctors hadn't been able to help her. That's what medicine was for, to help sick young girls get better. If they failed at that, what the fuck good were they?

I felt a little manic and more than a bit mad, mad in both senses of the word. Fallon had saved my life. I should not have had the strength to break chains, not during the day. It was only my need to shelter her that had given me the power to shatter steel that day. Only her need to protect me had placed her in such a terrible danger.

I'd seen that impulse in others before, but I hadn't recognized it in my darling friend until that very moment.

There are some souls who are so starved of something essential in their youth that they become consumed with a need to give that missing something to others. Fallon, the beautiful young girl who no one ever protected, needed nothing more in this world than to protect someone. And she'd chosen to protect me.

Well, if God let her live, I wouldn't let her down, not ever again. Not as long as I drew breath.

After a bit more cleaning, I was fairly presentable. By that time, I'd found the emergency room from where I'd slipped down a back stairs and hid myself in a closet. It all had been by instinct. I knew better than to let doctors poke or prod me—or to wait around for Whitefarrow's people to confirm their kill. My animal mind had known to hide.

Well, they could find me now if they wished. But they wouldn't like what they found. I was going to murder the man, and anyone around him, and I was going to murder him tonight.

But I needed something first, something I couldn't do without. It took only a little searching to find where they'd placed Fallon, a room on the third floor. I followed her scent from the emergency room, and halfway up the second flight of stairs I knew the smell I followed was that of a living person. My heart leapt.

I didn't stay long. The last thing she needed at that precise moment was me lurking around, drawing more danger. I saw that she was alive, checked her vitals myself, and spoke briefly with a nurse. The terror bombing at Foley Square was all people were talking about, and the hospital was awash with injured and dead.

I gave the nurse Fallon's name, listed Bess Porter as her next of kin, and found my way downstairs. Once there, I snagged a coat from a break room and slipped into the darkened street outside. I would be back to care for Fallon soon. First I needed to take care of something else.

That day told me everything I needed to know about my enemy. He was a scoundrel and a monster, but even I hadn't thought him capable of something so ruthless. Chaining me to a car bomb in the middle of a public area, killing scores if not hundreds, all just to eliminate little old me.

And I'd broken one of my key rules. Don't ever underestimate how dangerous a Renfield can be. There were no blood drinkers there that day, and there were no professional security men. I'd been set upon by seven or eight vampire groupies who nearly had done me in, and the creatures didn't care in the least if they died with me.

Criminy.

I pulled out my phone and wiped some dried blood from it. I still was a mess, but thankfully my pants were black and didn't show the many layers of blood and grime. The smell of them only fueled me.

The phone told me the hour was later than I'd expected, but I still had time. In about two hours, there would be a fuel delivery to a filling station about three blocks from where Whitefarrow awaited his death. I planned on meeting it.

But I'd be a fool if I didn't proceed with caution. As I moved through the city, I watched my six without fail, was suspicious of every person I met—yes, there are female lackeys—and took no direct routes. As I travelled, on foot and via public transportation, I took a tally of my resources.

I still had my knife and the garrote stuck in a hidden compartment of my pants. My phone needed a charge, but was undamaged. My wallet was still in my pocket. And I knew where my enemy was.

Did the scoundrel imagine that I was dead? It was a fair question. I'd seen bomb blasts before, many over the years. Had I been within a few feet of such a powerful detonation, it would have blown me to smithereens. Even at nighttime, it was unlikely one of my kind could have survived being chained to such a devastating device.

Given my surprising history of resilience, a practicing craven like Whitefarrow would want to see proof. But what is proof when a body is smeared against a building wall? Or if it is ripped into tiny pieces?

It didn't matter. The man was coming out of his lair, or I was coming in after him. At that point, it didn't matter whether I lived or died. This filthy little vermin would not see the next sunrise.

There was a nice little diner just down from the fuel station, a place I'd visited before, and I went there after swinging by the hardware store to pick up a few things. The place had a decent corned beef on rye, and I had a few cups of coffee to boot. Not wanting to miss the refuel truck, I wandered down early, and was pleased to get there just as the driver backed the vehicle in, undid the ground caps, and turned to unlimber the hoses.

He turned just in time to see me driving his tanker away.

It was a pretty easy vehicle to handle, and I soon had the thing in top gear. This time, I didn't mind if I crashed while driving. That was the goal. I hadn't had time to obtain a rifle or a shotgun, and I had no measurements for the parking garage at my enemy's building, so I figured I'd flip the vehicle just at the top of the ramp into the underground garage and let gravity do the rest. There were a few road flares in a hardware store bag tucked in my belt. If the fuel didn't spark straightaway, those should give it the oomph it needed.

The tanker was doing 70 when it hit the dogleg turn at the end of the T intersection where the Centrix Investments building was located. I made a lazy turn to straighten her out, and then slammed into a hard left just before I reached the ramp down to the parking lot.

The vehicle, laden with heavy liquid, shimmied, lurched, and then flipped over onto its side. Before it did, I sprang through the driver's door, as nimble as a young doe, landed on both feet, and watched as the tanker body cracked like an egg on the heavy metal bollards that divided the garage's entrance and exit lanes.

Fuel gushed like an ocean tide down the ramp, and the parking attendant being no fool bolted for the street. I gave myself a good 50 feet before a turned and tossed a lighted flare down the garage ramp. One flare did the trick, and the entire bottom of the building exploded into flame.

I headed to the building's front door to hit the fire alarm and to cause as much panic as possible. There needed to be no question that the building was doomed. Soon I was knocking on the front door, screaming, "Fire"!

When the door guard looked out to see the flames licking up the side of the building, I dashed around him and headed for the staircase.

I'd brought along one extra tool from the hardware store, tucked in the belt at the small of my back. Blood drinkers can absorb and survive incredible physical damage. A blow to the head from a four-pound sledgehammer would not kill one of us, but it would leave one of us dazed if the person wielding that sledge was as strong as me.

I hoped I wouldn't need it, but if others like me were present, I didn't want to waste time on them. I would not allow anyone, blood drinker or Renfield, to slow me down while Whitefarrow made his getaway.

I yanked a thin metal security door off of the first-floor stairwell and began my dash. The stairs were no contest. I bounded up an entire flight at a time, and soon I reached the level where I knew the entrance of my enemy's bunker to be located. By that time, the smell of petrol and smoke was unmistakable, and the fire alarm blared throughout the building.

There were precious few people in the structure at that time, and most would have been on the ground floor offices. I had not seen a single security guard, and I wondered if Corey had taken the entire staff with him when he'd resigned. The lovely man.

When I left the stairwell, after tugging yet another flimsy security door from its hinges, I saw a small knot of lackeys standing near the heavy steel door that was the only access point to Whitefarrow's bunker—­­and it was open!

That particular door was the only portal I thought I would have trouble getting through, so I rushed at them with all of my speed. There didn't appear to be a weapon of any kind among them, and I snapped, twisted, and broke their puny and pitiful geek bodies. The door remained open.

I was in.

It was just that simple. Despite all my worry and planning, I'd made it into the scoundrel's inner bunker with little trouble. It occurred to me that my enemy must think me dead. Good.

I didn't have a precise layout for the place, but through documents Tanis had provided and notes I made from what Corey told me, I had a general sense of where I was and where I'd find the villain.

But none of that was necessary. It looked very much like I'd interrupted some sort of gathering. Clear voices emanated from down the short hallway through which I walked, and when I rounded a partition at the end of the passage, I saw a dozen or so people.

It appeared that my untimely arrival had thrown a monkey-wrench into a blood-fueled bacchanalia of some kind. The people nearest to me were normal folks, several already blood stained and dead. All those still alive were tied and naked, with looks of shock and horror on their faces. It was like something from some ridiculous Hollywood B movie. What sort of miserable wretches drank in this way? It was nauseating.

The rest of those present, the partygoers of this despicable affair, now stood against the window, apparently watching as flames engulfed the building below. Most were in various stages of undress with bloodstains on their skin.

It was then that I saw the scrawny arms and the flaccid ass of Gregory Whitefarrow. He was naked and covered in blood, no doubt giddy at the thought that he'd finally done away with me.

Half of me wanted to gloat and to torture the man, but this had been too long coming. It now was too important, and too many had suffered. I instead hurled myself across the room at him, intending to drive the two of us out the window and onto the street below.

But out of nowhere, another accursed flunky leapt at me—with a sword of all things! I ducked, snatched the weapon from his hand, and spilled his guts with his own blade. But too late. The damage was done. His cries had alerted those at the window, and I now had six opponents, including my enemy and two other blood drinkers.

Most of my kind never felt the need to use a weapon, but this blade was sharp, and I'd always had a knack for such things. I first went at the two nearest lackeys, putting them between me and the others. In a pair of quick cuts, I killed one and spilled a deluge of the other's blood onto the ground.

But the two blood drinkers with my enemy, both of them howling in animal rage, were on me with great speed. Rather than fence with the two, I hurled the blade at Whitefarrow, who had held back while the others advanced. The blade spun off of his upturned arm, scarcely injuring the creature.

By then I'd snatched out the sledge from my belt and turned on the blood drinkers who nearly were upon me. They were fast and strong, like all of my kind, but they were young and unarmed, and I'd been in many, many fights.

The first, a handsome lad with powerful shoulders, very nearly knocked me from my feet with a move that was half stumble and half blind luck. The sledge tapped the silly fellow right on the tip of his left knee, causing his leg to buckle and sending him to the ground, and a female I'd never seen before lunged at me, only to receive a brutal punch in the throat that left her gagging.

The sledge then lashed out, as if it had a mind of its own, and cracked against the heads of each blood drinker three times in lightning succession. Neither was dead, but for some minutes they would be unable to pose a threat or even to protect themselves.

I wheeled on Whitefarrow and leapt, but the last remaining lackey threw himself low, attempting to entangle my legs as the ashen-faced and furious Whitefarrow cut at me with the sword that he'd recovered.

The lackey nearly had me on the ground before I kicked him away, and Whitefarrow demonstrated uncanny ability with the blade. He hacked, cut, and thrust as if he'd been trained at it for a lifetime, and I was just able to parry his first few cuts with the hammer before I realized that one of the first lackeys I had cut down had stolen up behind me.

The blood-drenched man soon was around my legs, and he held me just long enough for the last flunky to rise from where I'd kicked him and to throw himself at my waist.

Nibbled to death by ducks. I just barely avoided a hard cut from Whitefarrow's blade, drew a nick from his backstroke, and was only able to stay standing by the grace of God. My foolish enemy was slow in pressing that advantage though, and I dropped the weight of the four-pound sledge onto the closest flunky with all my might, smashing the life out of him.

The other flunky screeched in pain and rage as I took him by the wrist and flung him at Whitefarrow like a sack of potatoes. The panicked fool skewered his own lackey, lost control of the blade, and stumbled backward, turning as if to run when he did.

I caught up to my enemy in one bound, and struck him once on the crown of the head. The fool made a mewling sound, turned and blurted out something that might have been a plea for his life, and then dropped to the floor after I brained him yet again with the four-pounder.

Once he was down, I struck him in the head again, and then again. I continued to strike that repulsive dome until it was obvious that no life remained in him, and then I struck it a few dozen times more for good measure. It felt good.

After a time, I stood and looked about. The two moaning and whimpering blood drinkers twitched on the floor, and all of the lackeys were dead. There still were the few captives alive, and I took mercy. Why not? There was an enormous sense of wellbeing bubbling up inside me at that moment, a veritable geyser, and my generosity knew no limits. Not even the reek of fresh blood in the air could dampen it.

I went over and released the poor things, and shooed them to the door, instructing them to follow the stairs to the ground floor and not to forget to tip their wait staff. I'm sure that last bit would give their therapists plenty to ponder for years to come.

I then went back and walloped Whitefarrow's corpse a few more times for the pure happiness that it gave me.

By that point, the fire had become a conflagration. It soon would engulf the entire building. I needed to make my exit, but I felt no haste. So consumed was I by the joy of that moment it would not have mattered if I went up with the building.

In fact, it occurred to me at that moment that the arson had been wholly unnecessary. So much had the fool let down his guard that I was able to gain entry to his redoubt with little effort. There were no regrets, though. The burning building was a thing of beauty, like icing on a cake.

They say revenge is a bitter pill, a thing to be avoided, dig two graves ... blah, blah, blah. More lies. The moments in my life that I had felt such elation and so much satisfaction were rare, and I took a few minutes to pause and smell the flowers.

Then I commenced to rummage and to loot the place. Yes, I'm a skinflint, a scrooge, and a miser—but after murder and arson, why recoil at a little kleptomania? There was a surprising amount of cash, gems, and precious metals simply lying around or stashed in places easy to find, and I made a tidy pack of it before I hit the road.

I'd have to step lively to get out of the building alive, but it was over. And I was happy.