My strength gradually returned. Feeling tingled back into my limbs. Fighting back waves of nausea and dizziness, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. What had Susan done to me? The bars of my cell had been bent wide open so Ray could extract Steve alive. Perhaps if I hurried, a part of me thought, maybe I could save him. The logical part of my brain already knew the truth. He was long gone. The temperature was already returning to normal.
One Ear grabbed me by the arm. "The devil took him! Poor Esteban. You brought this on us!" He cocked one meaty fist back to pummel me. I was too weak to defend myself. The prisoner flinched as a shot rang out. Plaster dust rained down from the ceiling. One Ear raised his open hands over his head as multiple flashlight beams converged on us.
"I may not speak the language, but I'm assuming a 10mm into the ceiling is pretty universal for cut it out." The voice spoke in clearly enunciated English.
Squinting into the super-bright weapon-mounted lights, I could make out several dark shapes. "Myers? Is that you?"
"I'm afraid so. You're coming with us, Pitt. Consider yourself extradited. Okay, men, fall back. Watch out, vampires on premises."
Gloved hands grabbed me by each arm and dragged me out of the cell. Flashlight beams stabbed in every direction as more armed men formed a perimeter around me. Their uniforms consisted of black body armor and every bit of high-tech tactical gear known to man. Feds. Not Federales, but rather United States federal agents, specifically the men of the Monster Control Bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice. Deadly professionals, every last one, and you would be hard pressed to find a bigger bunch of assholes.
"Pitt, what's your status?" Special Agent Myers snapped. Unlike the other Feds, Myers was wearing his standard uniform of a cheap suit and skinny tie. No matter how important a lawman he was, and last I had heard, he was the interim director of the whole top-secret agency, he would always look like a junior college English professor to me.
"Susan and Ray Shackleford are here," I gasped. Myers and I had a bit of history. He and his partner, Agent Franks, had been the representatives of the government who had visited me in the hospital after my very first monster encounter. They had threatened my life if I didn't keep quiet that day, and they had come very close to fulfilling that promise on a few other occasions. I suppose you could say that I did not have a very good working relationship with the government.
Myers spoke into his radio. "We've recovered the target, all teams return to extract. We have at least two vampires. One Master. Repeat one Master. The dark-haired female Caucasian is the Master. The large white-haired male is the lesser, but is still very dangerous. If you see her, do not hesitate, because she sure won't." He stepped past the corpse that Ray had pulled through the bars. There was still some residual twitching. The agents pulling me along slipped as their boots lost traction in the spreading puddle of blood.
I never thought that I would think of these guys as a sight for sore eyes. "Glad to see you too, Myers," I said cheerfully.
"Shut up. You have no idea how much trouble you've caused me." Myers sounded frustrated. My legs were starting to wobble less, so I tried to walk rather than be baggage. The Feds just kept on pulling. "I was sent to find you at the resort, but when I arrived, there had been a zombie outbreak. I found your team, but they had no idea where you were. It took a lot of diplomatic work to track you here. And then we roll up to find this mess. You're not an easy man to find."
Why had Myers been looking for me?
The hallway outside Section Six was splattered with the bodies of dead guards. Even as jaded as I am to this kind of thing, I had to look away. These people had done nothing to deserve the vampires' wrath. The Feds kept Myers and me in the center of a protective diamond formation as we hurried outward. The Fed on point led us quickly through the maze of winding passages. There were many confused survivors, guards, loose prisoners, and staff all wandering around in the dark, but nobody challenged the squadron of well armed Americans. Good thing too, because I had seen how trigger-happy the Monster Control Bureau was.
The courtyard was engulfed in chaos. One guard tower was on fire. The main truck gate was wide open, with one of the heavy gates lying broken and splintered in the road. Denim-clad prisoners were running out the opening and fleeing into the dark. Torn shapes sat in the moonlight or dangled from the razor-wire fence. Those must have been the men who had tried to stop Susan.
Three black Suburbans were parked directly in front of the exit, engines running. A large man in drab black armor was waiting for us, a stubby F2000 rifle looking tiny in his massive arms. The man was broad and muscled like an NFL linebacker. He was a frightening apparition. Something about this particular Fed emanated a nonchalant capacity to deliver unbelievable pain. His dark face scowled from under a pair of night vision goggles when he saw me being dragged out of the building.
"Franks, my brother, what's up?" I shouted. Special Agent Franks of the Monster Control Bureau particularly seemed to hate my guts. On the day that it becomes expedient for the government to end my life, I somehow know that it will be Agent Franks who'll get the job.
"Too bad," he muttered.
"What's too bad?" I asked as the Feds shoved me through the open door of the waiting Suburban.
"We got here in time." He slammed the door after me.