Okay, I lied about shooting Mr Sinnel.

This isn't a cop out. Really it isn't. I had intended to go over there and empty the gun into his head. I mean, I really, really wanted to shoot him so badly, but the one thing that held me back was that it wasn't him I really wanted to shoot until his head was nothing but a pulpy mess of skull fragments and brain matter spread all across the floor into so many pieces that they would never put him back together again. It wasn't him I wanted down there, no matter how much of a monster he had proven himself to be, no matter that he had killed poor Martine the maid without even thinking about it.

So I didn't end our entire existence. I held myself back and was just thankful that it hadn't been Mr Flynn dying on the floor in front of me. Things would have taken a much darker turn if that had been the case.

I looked up to the entrance, that splintered frame a reminder of the damage done by Mr Sinnel's entrance, sure I had heard something outside that sounded very much like two men trying to be quiet, one of them not having much practice with discretion. Try to imagine Mr Bryce sneaking up on anyone and you kind of get the picture.

"This is the part where we talk, Mister Flynn," I said to the doorway.

"I suppose you think you can trade the life of Mister Sinnel for your freedom," Mr Flynn called back.

"We have more grenades. A lot more grenades. There is going to be a hell of a lot of property damage going on, and with the mood I'm in, I don't think you really want to fuck with me!"

There was a long pause, then: "Where is the old one? Where is Hester?"

"I'd love to say something like a million miles from here, where you'll never find him, but we know how that worked out last time." I turned back to Claude. "You wanna field this question?"

Claude grinned and looked around the room, first at Sammy and then at Jaime. For the first time I noticed that Jaime was dressed in all black clothes, most notably a black leather jacket with a black hoodie underneath. As I watched she pulled up what I had thought was the top of a turtleneck sweater, but was actually some kind of balaclava, right over the bottom half of her face. This was immediately followed by a pair of polarized goggles over her eyes before she pulled up the hood to cover her completely.

"Why is Jaime dressed like a ninja?" was going to be my next question, but Sammy had picked up an extremely large bag was was moving over past Jaime and it was only then that I realized there was a door to an adjoining room and that they had some kind of plan in place. Apparently a plan that involved a lot of sunlight from the way Jaime was dressed.

For some reason I felt massively underdressed for what was about to come next, and the pain from my burns on my hands and head agreed one hundred percent.

Claude checked his watch once again and I wanted to resist the urge to yell at him, but if experience has taught me anything, it's that Claude almost always has a plan. I watched as Jaime also slipped out of the room and now it was just me and Claude alone in the room.

"Mister Flynn is it?" Claude asked and pulled out his phone.

"I take it that you have the keeping of Hester?"

"You take it correctly. Tell me, is Mister Bryce there with you?"

"Why yes—"

Claude tapped the screen on his marvellous phone and the wall went BOOM!

Okay, I really didn't do that justice, so let me try again.

Ever watch any of those movies where there is a series of small but powerful explosives implanted into a wall or a floor, and they go off one by one like a string of firecrackers, just boom-boom-boom-boom-BOOM! Something like that happened, about two seconds passing from the time of the first detonation to the last one. It had the spectacular result of blowing out a huge circular hole in the wall... the wall next to where Mr Flynn and Mr Bryce had been standing only seconds before. Sunlight flooded into the corridor—

Here is the sad thing about sunlight. Sure it does great harm to vampires and sets us on fire in a matter of seconds from direct exposure, but it is not a magical solution to getting rid of vampires. As I've pointed out before, vampires have this little thing called "physics" that limits some of the more fantastic abilities people have dreamed up. Unfortunately, light or in this case sunlight, has to follow the same damn rules.

Unless you happen to be out in the middle of an open field or something similar, getting direct light onto an object or a surface is limited by the actual direction of the sun, especially if that object is hiding inside a cave... the cave in this case being a second floor corridor with a hole blasted in the wall... a wall which happened to be on the southern side of the motel.

Movies have it so damn easy. The sun is always where it needs to be in movies.

Any guess where the sun wasn't?

There technically wasn't a wall anymore at the end of the corridor, just a jagged hole that ended where the wall opposite to ours began and the opposite door, which was now bathed in afternoon sunlight that had no interest in behaving like the sun in movies and streaming directly into the corridor to burn our troublesome vampires to a crisp. Mr Flynn poked his head into our doorway, very clearly not bathed in sunlight, very clearly not on fire.

"Well that was certainly interesting," Mr Flynn said. "But we're still alive." Mr Flynn stepped into the doorway and looked down at the crawling body of Mr Sinnel who had only now reached the bathroom door. "We're all still alive."

"Oops?" Claude said and there he was glancing at his watch again.

"I believe this is what we refer to, as 'your move' since that last one failed magnificently."

"Which plan was that one again?" I whispered to Claude.

"I think we were down to M, but we may have to go directly to Z at this point."

"You literally have a plan Z?"

"Yeah, that's the one where we give up and die. That's why it's important to have the other twenty-six plans."

I did the quick mathematics and the answer was still wrong. "There are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet..." I dared to point out.

"Plan M has two parts," Claude said, and he was way too happy with himself. I didn't return the high-five that Claude was requesting, so he grabbed my limp hand and gave himself a me-assisted high-five instead.

"Enough useless chatter," Mr Flynn said, and he blurred as he attacked, faster than I had ever seen him move. I tackled Mr Flynn, somehow grabbing him around the waist as he punched at Claude who could only move at normal speed, a blow that was designed to break a jaw and seriously mess up someone's face. I pummelled Mr Flynn as we crashed back into the wall, plaster flying down, and suddenly he was peeling me off of him and was that motherfucker biting me?

I screamed as he tore at my shoulder and I turned, trying to get him off, trying to make him stop eating me—

Beep-beep-beep as Claude's watch alarmed and I somehow managed to see the evil grin he gave as he looked up—

"Here we go..."

Mr Flynn staggered and dropped me, his energy suddenly draining out of him, and I staggered back, glad that he had stopped taking chunks of me, and pissed that he had taken chunks out of me! Godfucking dammit!

I threw myself at him and Mr Flynn tried to block, tried to move away, but he was moving so slow, way too slow for me. My first flurry of punches hit him in the stomach and torso and one lucky blow slid up to catch him in the throat. The look of panic on his face was absolutely priceless as he coughed up my blood and staggered back against the window.

Mr Flynn slumped to the floor, his eyes unfocused.

"Took long enough," Claude said.

"What did you do to him?"

"Four shots of five-hour energy. Each." Claude shrugged. "It was after the stun grenades.  I had to use a tranq gun because there was no way I was going to get that close, so results might vary. I timed if off how long it took to take down Hester."

"You realize he almost took your head off, right?"

"Yeah... that wasn't in the plan."

Something occurred to me and I turned back towards the door, ready for anything and hearing nothing, which was scary as hell.

"Mister Bryce is still out there..." I whispered, and Claude shook his head.

"Jaime! Sound off!"

Silence.  Nothing but the sound of distant sirens drawing closer.

I turned my panicked look to Claude for clarification.

"Shit, that's not good. The hole in the wall was supposed to just be a distraction for her and Sammy to get the hell out there.  Jaime was going to distract him if anything went wrong so Sammy could get to safety, but I made her promise to not engage him directly--"

"WHAT?" The look I gave Claude must have told him everything I was currently thinking, none of it good, all of it a different state of panic.

"It was Jaime's idea dude!" He yelled, but I was already running out the door, trying to go faster than I ever had before, the doors in the corridor blurring past as I ran, not caring about the bites and tears in my body, but having this deep sinking feeling that no matter how fast I ran, I was already going to be too late.

I ran like the devil, and brought Hell along with me.

##########AUTHOR'S NOTE###########

3 more chapters before the end of this part of the story, and the end of this particular book.  Looks like we're heading towards more trouble!  Tell me whatcha think about the great escape plan!

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