His clawed hand clamped around my throat like an iron vise, choking off my air. A bullet hole in his forehead closed and squeezed out a mushroomed.45 slug like some disastrous pimple. I learned a few things right then. Vampires did not breathe, and I was in fact still afraid of dying. I was surprised that I was thinking about Julie. I just hoped that she made it.

"Tell me just one thing, you poor brave idiot," the vampire ordered as he shook me. "How did you know about Lord Machado? How?"

"I went to France once," I gasped.

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Darné asked, fangs extending as he prepared to feed on me. I wondered if I had the strength to break free long enough to fall to my death. It beat the alternative.

"My family went there to see where one of my grandpas was buried. He died on Utah Beach."

"How touching. Now, if you tell me how you learned about Lord Machado, I'll make your death painless."

"I learned that the people in the countryside were pretty nice. But the people in Paris were a bunch of stuck-up, self-righteous pricks. I'm guessing you're from Paris."

"Idiot." Darné's jaw distended as his mouth opened like an anaconda about to eat a goat.

"Darné!" a voice shouted from below. It was Earl Harbinger. He strode into the engine room through the swirling orange smoke.

The vampire's mouth slowly closed. "Hello, Earl. It has been a while."

"Come down here and face me. You know you're not going to get out of here alive. MHI controls the whole freighter. Your goons are all staked. It's over."

"I have your man as a hostage. Let me go, or I kill him," the vampire hissed.

"You know the rules. You helped write them. Let him go and come down here and fight me. You know you've wanted to prove something for a long time. Let's go. Either way you're going to die. At least this way you get the satisfaction of seeing if I am as good as they say."

"And what if I just kill this piece of merde?" He squeezed so hard that the vertebrae in my neck popped. I cringed in pain, and involuntary tears rolled from my eyes.

"Then I'll have my men at the hatch above you throw down buckets of holy water. I'll just stake you while you're laying on the ground and sizzling. Or even better, I'll tie you up and drag you into the sun. You've seen it. You know how much that has to hurt. I swear that if you kill that Hunter then I'll drag you out of here and nail you to the superstructure and watch you burn. I figure you can probably go a while before you finally quit kicking." Harbinger unbuckled his armor straps and set his weapon harness on the deck. "Just you and me, Darné. One last go-round."