The Last Vampire by Whitley Strieber Page B

hand. She sprinted, moving easily twice as fast as the fastest human runner — but what did that matter in a world where the machines hurtled along at phenomenal velocity? Even the strength of a Keeper was nothing against fifty tons of speeding steel.
    As she reached the ladder, the lights of the train appeared. Immediately, the horn started blaring. Worse, a screaming sound began and the train started to slow dramatically. This time, the driver had seen her and put on his brakes. The last thing she needed was a confrontation in this damned tunnel. That would be the end. She’d be trapped then.
    She bolted up the ladder, only to find that the steel hatch was battened down tight. Her great strength enabled her to push it until it bent and popped open.
    The train came to a stop about ten feet from her. It stood there, invisible behind its lights, its horn honking and honking. Back where she had come from, voices rose, people shouting in French not to move . . . French, and also that one American voice.
    She clambered up through the hatch. Now she was in an access tunnel, and not far away there was a door. She didn’t think it would make any sense to go along this tunnel, even though it was obviously meant for pedestrians and not trains. Tunnels were damned traps. She went through the door.
    Light flared in her face; a roar assailed her. She staggered, and a voice said, “Pardon.” She had stumbled into a man in a taxi queue. He reached out, took her waist. “Madame?” he said, his voice rising in question.
    “Sorry,” she babbled in English, then, in French, “Pardon, je suis confuse.”
    He looked her up and down. The other people in the queue were staring.
    “I have broken my shoe,” she added, smiling weakly. Then she crept to the back of the line. She had escaped the horrors of the police and the dangers of the maze. Somehow, she had reached the outside world.
    She must get a hotel room, she thought, then seek out Martin Soule. He had been a friend of her mother’s back in the days of powdered wigs. She’d seen him fifty years ago. Martin was very ancient and wise, very careful. He was also stylish, powerful and daring. Like Miriam, he was a wine enthusiast, and had even desensitized himself to some of their fodder, because it was so difficult to move in French society without eating. Once, he’d made her laugh by drinking the blood of an enormous fish. But then his preparation of it according to human cooking principles had revolted her. She still remembered the ghastly odor of the hot, dense flesh when it came steaming out of the poacher.
    She was still well back in the queue when she noticed the policeman with a radio to his lips, staring at her as he talked. Her heart sank. At home, she dealt easily with the police. The police were her friends. She had the Sixth Precinct, where her club was located, well paid off. But she could not pay these cops off.
    The policeman came striding toward the queue. He had his hand on the butt of his pistol. She thought to run, but there were two more of them coming from the opposite direction. Her only choice was to leap out into traffic and trust to her speed and dexterity to get through the cars that shot past just beyond the taxi stand. But even that would lead only to a wall.
    When she realized that there was no escape, she let out an involuntary growl that made the woman standing ahead of her whip round, her face pale, her eyes practically popping out. Miriam’s whole instinct now was to kill. Had she not applied her powerful will, she might have torn the creature’s throat out.
    Quelling her damned instincts, she forced a smile onto her face. She’d play her last card — give them her emergency Cheryl Blackmore driver’s license and claim to have lost her passport. Maybe before they discovered that Cheryl Blackmore was a long-dead resident of Nebraska and most certainly did not rate a passport, she would have found some means of escape.
    The three policemen