Welcome

Bunt whipped out his phone and tapped furiously.

“I checked in here already, you

don’t have

to do it for me,” Sally called sweetly. He snarled and put his phone away; of course, he’d gone online to check in and claim that he was here first.

He looked her over with flat grey eyes, then smiled. He still had some secret weapon. He pushed open the broken door and walked calmly in.

“Door wuz unlocked, yuh feeb. Why’d yuh break it? Charlie lemme use this place fuh free, now I gotta pay ‘im.”

He was trying to goad her into doing something stupid. “It was unlocked because I unlocked it,” she said tightly. “I’m here. I won. Pay up.” Heart hammering, she waited.

I could kill him

, she thought. We’re alone together for the first and probably only time

. Her right hand sweated onto the wood grain of the stake.

But she didn’t dare. He still held KerriAnne’s life. Behind him Lavinia inched the van forward so it filled the doorway again, engine inaudible over the clamor. Vampires surged under the van but none of them thought to warn Bunt.

His eyes scanned her body with wet appreciation. “Whud yur want, baby girl?” he sneered. “Yur wettin’ here f’me, you win everything. Whud yur want?”

“You know what I want!”

He shifted backward a step, then regained his superior smile.

She spoke more calmly. “You know what I Ran for. You have a slicer collar around my sister’s neck. Give me the key. And

the unlock code.” She glared, then changed her mind and tried to look humble. He still might just hand it over.

He reached into the pocket of his neon orange Sierra Designs jacket and felt around. “Lessee, ‘zit in this pocket? Mmph, naw, muss be in this

pocket.”

“You’re not going to give me what I won, are you?” she asked deliberately. “I won it fair and square, and you’re cheating.” When he didn’t move, she goaded him further. “I know how you win these Runs. I figured it out. You’re such a pathetic fat white slug.”

She actually didn’t care about body size (or thought she didn’t) but was pleased when he stiffened. Again, she thought of the Jiang Shi

. “They are not for little girls to watch,” her father had said as he answered her fascinated questions with a patience he showed only when she asked about things Chinese. She suppressed the fascinated loathing she felt for him and the confused but linked longing for Lavinia’s commanding hand on her ass.

“I dunno ‘cher talkin’ about,” Bunt said. She saw him reach a decision and threw everything into a last gamble. She spoke aloud the secret of how he won.

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“I saw you throwing her blood to them. That’s why they don’t attack you: they get more by serving you. I see how they fawn on you, you’ve got, like, this cult following

among them. That’s how you can just walk to the goal. But you only hold these Runs every couple weeks; I guess you can’t bleed her more often.” She remembered KerriAnne’s pale face. “I’m surprised you don’t have a whole bank of women. But you’re too pathetic to get hold of anyone but her.”

He didn’t cringe. He gloated. “I’m the Master of everyone!” he chortled. She hated the thrill when she thought he was going to say Master of all Masters.

He looked at her with loathing. “You didn’t beat me. You lose now! Hey vampires

!” he suddenly bellowed. The racket outside tightened to a prolonged hiss.

Everything happened in agonized slow motion. Bunt spoke three syllables, “You’re … welcome…”

He was going to invite the vampires in! They would shred her to pieces and (he must have reason to hope) leave him alone. She lunged for him, knowing she could not stop his words in time.

But through the open door and the intense silence, Lavinia roared, “You can’t say ‘you’re welcome’ until I say ‘thank you!!

’”

Bunt sputtered. The vampires snarled their disappointment. They couldn’t surge inside until he actually said “You’re welcome to enter.” Lavinia had changed his meaning, but only for this instant. He opened his mouth to start again.

But this time, Sally was ready. “Thanks, you bastard!” she shouted, and pointed to her inadequate (but she hoped he wouldn’t know that) final weapon: the phone which she had hitched to her waist with the video lens pointing out. “You’ve just showed the world what you really are.”

She wondered if she should say, “This is streaming live right now,” or just leave it implied. Her two-year-old phone couldn’t stream live video. A red light showed it was recording and she could upload to YouTube later but that might take an hour and would probably freeze halfway through.

His pallid bald head inclined toward the phone and she feared his crafty eyes would see that it was too old. She decided not to over-explain.

His head swiveled and saw Lavinia hunched over the wheel holding something tight. Sally had no idea what it was but Bunt apparently decided it was equipment that backed Sally up and that he was on camera to the world.

He turned back with a troubled smile. “I think yur

the cheater, if you come with that bint out there. Yur s’posed to get here on your own.”

“Give me the key,” she said calmly. “The world knows what a bastard you are now. You can’t hold these Runs anymore.”

“They heard you

say shit. Lies. I dint say nothin’. You don’t know nothin’ ‘bout my secret, yur just hunnerd percent wrong, ‘s all.”

Sally took a risk. “You seem to think this is already going out live,” she said, grateful that she hadn’t told him it was. “We’re just recording it now. When I give the word, my friend out there uploads it. Unless

you give me the key.”

His eyes narrowed, then he turned and lunged through the door.

Oh shit! He must have decided he could kill Lavinia before she had time to upload. The vampires let him through but Lavinia threw what she held into their midst: the bloody wrapping from her finger. They dived on it like sharks. Their seething bodies blocked him.

Lavinia floored the accelerator. The van lurched to the right and out of Sally’s field of vision. But with bodies thick around it she couldn’t drive fast. In a moment, Bunt would be past the blockade and would catch her.

But in the moment when he lurched around and left, the revelation about the Jiang Shi

came to Sally. She staggered as the memory flooded in.

A Jiang Shi

had come to her once, long ago.