Then all went dark, and I was alone.

Deep within me, my kundalini noir stirred. This black serpent of vampire energy uncoiled, pumping strength and vitality into my undead flesh.

My eyes popped opened. The cool air swelled my lungs. Every detail in the shed seemed crisp and new. I smelled mare’s sweat on the blankets and tack. A hidden mouse nibbled from behind a sack of feed.

I clenched my fists and marveled at the intensity of my aura sizzling around me. The other vampires had been wrong. Human blood alone wouldn’t restore my powers. I had needed to expunge the curse of guilt from the carcass of my mortal soul. Wendy’s supernatural dryad blood had sent me to the edge of the afterlife, where I found absolution. I felt new and refreshed, like a reptile that had shed its old skin.

Wendy scooted away from me. Her green aura radiated distress. “Felix, are you okay?”

I straightened my legs and rotated upwards on my heels until I stood. “I feel better than okay, I feel like murder.”

“But your wound…”

I lifted the back of my shirt and touched the fresh scar that had formed over the bullet hole. “It’s just a souvenir now.”

Tucking the shirt into my trousers, I peered out the broken window at the frigid calm night. A layer of new snow covered everything. “How long was I out?”

“More than an hour.”

I read my watch. “It’s three-thirty in the morning. We’ve got time.” I pulled the blanket off the floor and draped it over my shoulders.

“Time for what?”

I grabbed a broom leaning in the near corner. “To highjack a convoy from the Department of Energy.”

Wendy followed me outside. “Don’t suppose I could talk you out of it? Maybe get help from the other vampires?”

“This is my investigation.”

The snowfall had turned our footsteps from the Dodge into a trail of shallow depressions. My feet sank into the snow. I levitated until the soles of my shoes barely scraped over the iced surface and then I started up the incline to my car.

A square hulk of an orange snowplow with flashing amber lights rumbled above on the road.

“If the state highway trucks are out,” I said, “then the roads must be clear.”

My Dodge Polara sat wedged against the guardrail. With the broom, I whisked snow off the car. “Wendy, get in and start the engine.”

She cranked the V-8 over. I discarded the broom and blanket, grasped the rear bumper, and lifted. I pulled backwards until the tires touched the pavement. Moving to the front of the Dodge, I gave the grill a hearty push. Wendy gunned the engine, and the car lurched back onto the highway.

I jerked open the driver’s door. “Let me drive.”

Though my vampire powers couldn’t enchant the Dodge, I drove as if they could. I kept the gas pedal flat against the floor and let the rear end of the car swing across the icy pavement and ricochet off the guardrails.

Wendy tightened her seat belt and braced her arms against the dashboard. “I thought this was a collectors’ item.”

Pieces of my car tore loose and clanged on the road. “Was,” I replied.

Her aura bristled with alarm. “And just how are you going to get into the trailer?”

“I’m not sure. But it shouldn’t be very complicated.”

“Just foolish and dangerous?”

“Wouldn’t be any fun if it wasn’t. I can drop you off someplace safe if you like.”

Wendy shook her head and grinned. “I haven’t been tagging after you all this time just to wimp out now.”

“Good. I could use a copilot on this kamikaze mission.” I turned off the interstate and proceeded to Highway 93. The road curved and rose up the hill and then straightened on the plain leading to Rocky Flats.

Far ahead, a confusion of flashing lights collected alongside the road.

“We’re just in time,” I said. “There’re marshaling the convoy. Wendy, unfasten the convertible top.”

She reached up and unsnapped the latches holding the convertible top to the windshield. The front end of the convertible top frame vibrated for a second against the windshield. The cold wind blasted in and ballooned the fabric. With a great rip, the frame collapsed backwards and banged against the trunk lid.

The oncoming lights grew brighter.

I willed my fingernails to lengthen into talons. Clenching the steering wheel, I pressed on the accelerator. The wind whirled into the driver’s compartment. The broken frame flailed violently, and one by one the metal struts broke apart. With a final rip, what was left of the convertible top tore free and fell behind us on the highway.

An unmarked white Suburban streaked past. Then a Humvee, with a bar of flashing lights fixed to the roof.

The next vehicle was as imposing as a locomotive, certainly a semi pulling the white trailer.

“Scoot your foot over and step on the gas pedal,” I shouted to Wendy.

She turned her body at an angle and her shoe nudged my foot off the accelerator.

With my hands remaining on the steering wheel, I drew my legs up and squatted on the driver’s seat. “Give it more gas.”

“Like this?” She flexed her leg. The engine grunted and the Dodge surged forward.

I held tight. “Yeah, like that.” I peeked over the windshield. Frigid night air blasted my face and hands. The headlights of the semi tractor fused into one brilliant comet flying at us. Adrenaline flooded my body. My nerves felt raw, as if my skin had been peeled back and sensations shot directly into my brain.

“Now take the wheel. Keep going straight, and as fast as you can.”

Wendy grasped the steering wheel. “Felix, you’re a goddamn menace.”

“At least I’m not boring.” With my left hand on the door and my right against the edge of the windshield, I cocked my body. The massive grill of the semi rushed at me.

“Don’t look back. Don’t slow down,” I shouted to Wendy. “The guards will be too busy with me to chase after you. Take care. I’ll see you later.”

Shoving back against the seat, I sprang through the air. For an instant I glided free and then smashed against the radiator grill, hitting hard with as much grace as a squirrel about to become roadkill. My brains rattled inside my skull. My feet scrambled to catch the lip of the front bumper. The truck swerved from side to side as if the driver had sensed my impact.

The Humvee preceding us slowed and closed the gap. Gravel kicked up by its tires pelted me. A roof hatch opened and a helmeted guard in combat gear appeared. He trained a spotlight on me. The circle of white illumination caught me splayed across the radiator grill. I was the center circle of a bull’s-eye. I clung to the radiator, glowing in the glare of the spotlight, my clothes rustling in the wind whistling past.

The guard in the Humvee took aim with a submachine gun. The red thread of a laser beam shot from beneath the gun and quivered on my face, like death’s finger tracing against my cheek.

I clambered over the hood just as a spray of bullets stitched into the radiator, venting jets of steam.

The driver of the truck and his guard became pie-eyed with shock at seeing me. The guard leaned to one side and flipped open a gun port in the right side of the windshield. I grasped the windshield wipers and hauled myself tight against the windshield, out of his line of fire.

The guard on the Humvee fired again. His bullets scratched the armored glass about me. I snaked over the windshield and lay atop the roof.

Two bullets punched from inside the roof and exited inches from my face. I stabbed my claws through the roof, tearing the metal, and peeled the roof back. A long burst of automatic fire shot through the void.

A pause. The guard had to be reloading. I looked into the hole I had made. The guard shrank away in terror and whimpered like a puppy. His hands clutched at a fresh magazine. I seized the guard by his collar, lifted him out of the cab, and tossed him screaming over my shoulder.