Free Thirst No. 3 by Christopher Pike Page A

he’s trying to keep the dial of the watch pointed at me. Could it be a weapon?
    “Raise your arms, now!” I snap.
    He tries to follow my order, but his arms flap uselessly. Still, his odd watch is no longer pointed at me. I move closer and sniff the air. The shock I experience right then forces me to take a step back.
    He’s not a vampire!
    How do I know? He doesn’t smell like one. All vampires—even the disgusting Eddie Fender—have a faint smell of our creator, Yaksha. This man smells more human than anything else.
    There’s another reason I know he’s not a vampire. This close, I can hear the subtleties of his heartbeat, things I could not hear at a distance. A vampire’s pulse, even under stress, is extremely regular. One might say the sine wave never wavers. This man’s heartbeat is slightly erratic. True, his heart pounds with a strength much greater than an ordinary mortal’s, but the rhythm is more akin to a human’s. The same with his breathing. It’s not as smooth as it should be.
    “What are you?” I ask.
    He glares at me. “Kill me.”
    “Are you so anxious to die?”
    “Kill me.”
    “No. I want to talk. You owe me that.”
    He sneers. “I owe you nothing.”
    I cannot place his accent. His English is perfect—the majority of people would assume he’s from England. But I hear other lands in his words.
    “Why the hostility?” I ask. “You attacked me.”
    “With good reason.”
    “What have I ever done to you?”
    “I know what you are.”
    “Maybe you do. But whoever you are, I mean you no harm.”
    “Liar!”
    “I speak the truth. You can hear the truth, can’t you, when it’s spoken? I honestly don’t know who you are.”
    My remark surprises him. He chews on it a moment.
    “Can I rest my arms?” he asks.
    “Yes. But keep your watch pointed away from me.”
    His arms drop to his lap. “Can you pull out the knives?”
    “I will if you answer a few of my questions. Agreed?”
    He shakes his head. “It’s not allowed.”
    “Allowed? You say that like you report to someone. Who?”
    He shakes his head. He won’t answer.
    I move closer. “Look, I’m serious when I say I mean you no harm. But someone sent you here to kill me, and frankly, that pisses me off. If you don’t start cooperating, I’m going to do things to you that will hurt a lot worse than that leg and those knives.”
    He lowers his gaze, his eyes focus on his watch.
    “I’s toad bein, jar?”
he whispers softly.
    I recognize the language, but only because I spent time in ancient Egypt. That was back in the days of Suzama. I doubt my attacker and whoever he’s talking to know that. My foe just said, “It is her, is it not?”
    A voice replies via the watch, in the same forgotten dialect.
    “There’s no doubt. You’ve done well.”
    “Can I end it?”
    “Yes. Now return to the Eternal Goddess.”
    “All glory to the Eternal Goddess.”
    The words are no sooner out of my assailant’s mouth than he twists his jaw to the right side and bites down. I hear a tooth inside his mouth—it can’t be a normal tooth—explode. Instantly I catch a whiff of something acidic in the air and leap back. A glowing cloud of red gas expands around his body as he exhales. The fumes are extremely corrosive. Within seconds his face melts away, his clothes catch fire, and his body begins to burn with a ferocity I’ve never seen before.
    The blaze is as short as it is fierce. A minute later it’s gone, and so is the man. All that’s left is a pile of ash. Whatever he used to kill himself belongs to a technology more advanced than anything I’ve encountered.
    Yet somehow he’s connected to ancient Egypt. The clue gives me small comfort. I still don’t know who or what these creatures are and why they want me dead.

FIVE

    Four days later I wait for Teri and Matt to visit my new home. For obvious reasons, I rented it in a hurry. The place is closer to town and lacks the security system my original home had. But