AS THE ground rushed up to meet me, I brought my legs together, hunched my upper body, spread my hands and landed in a crouch. My extra-strong bones absorbed the shock without breaking, although the force of the contact sent me rolling forward and I almost impaled myself on my sword (which would have been an embarrassing way to die).
There was a sharp yell of pain to my left, and as I bounced on to my feet I saw Mr Crepsley lying on the ground, nursing his right ankle, unable to stand. Ignoring my injured friend, I brought up my sword defensively and looked for Vancha and Harkat.
Our leap through the window had taken the police and soldiers by surprise. They were falling over one another and getting in each other's way, making it impossible for anyone to take a clean shot.
Harkat had grabbed a young soldier in the midst of the confusion and was holding him close to his chest, spinning quickly in circles so nobody had time to shoot him in the back. Vancha, meanwhile, had set his sights on the big cheese. As I watched, he charged through several officers and soldiers, leapt over a car, and brought Chief Inspector Alice Burgess crashing to the ground with a perfectly timed tackle.
While all human eyes fixed on Vancha and the Chief Inspector, I hurried to Mr Crepsley's side and helped him up. His teeth were gritted in pain and I could tell instantly that his ankle wouldn't support him.
"Is it broken?" I shouted, dragging him behind a car for cover before someone snapped to his senses and took a shot at us.
"I do not think so," he gasped, "but the pain is intense." He collapsed behind the car and rubbed the flesh around his ankle, trying to massage out the pain.
Across the way, Vancha was on his feet, Alice Burgess' throat clutched in one hand, her megaphone in the other. "Hear this!" he roared through the megaphone at the police and soldiers. "If you shoot, your Chief dies!"
Above us, the blades of the helicopter hummed like the wings of a thousand angry bees. Otherwise - total silence.
Burgess broke it. "Forget about me!" she roared. "Take these creeps out now!"
Several marksmen raised their weapons obediently.
Vancha tightened his fingers around the police chief's throat. Her eyes bulged worryingly. The marksmen hesitated, then lowered their weapons slightly. Vancha loosened his grip, but didn't let go completely. Holding the white-haired woman in front of him, he shuffled over to where Harkat was standing with his human shield. The two got back to back, then slowly crossed to where Mr Crepsley and I were sheltering. They resembled a large and clumsy crab as they moved, but it worked. Nobody fired.
"How bad is it?" Vancha asked, crouching beside us, dragging Burgess down with him. Harkat did likewise with his soldier.
"Bad," Mr Crepsley said soberly, locking gazes with Vancha.
"You can't flit?" Vancha asked softly.
"Not like this."
They stared at each other silently.
"Then we'll have to leave you behind," Vancha said.
"Aye." Mr Crepsley smiled thinly.
"I'm staying with him," I said instantly.
"This is no time for false heroics," Vancha growled. "You're coming - end of story."
I shook my head. "The hell with false heroics - I'm being practical. You can't flit with both me and Harkat on your back. It would take too long to work up the speed. We'd be shot dead before we got to the end of the street."
Vancha opened his mouth to object, realized my argument was valid, and closed it.
"I'm staying too," Harkat said.
Vancha groaned. "We don't have time for this rubbish!"
"It's not rubbish," Harkat said calmly. "I travel with Darren. Where he goes, I go. Where he stays, I stay. Besides, you'll stand a better chance - without me."
"How do you figure that?" Vancha asked.
Harkat pointed at Alice Burgess, still gasping from the tightness of Vancha's grip. "Alone, you can carry her and use her as a - shield until you flit."
Vancha sighed downheartedly. "You're all too clever for me. I'm not going to sit here and try to talk you round." He stuck his head up over the bonnet of the car to check on the surrounding troops, squinting hard against the daylight. "Stay back," he warned, "or these two die!"
"You'll - never get - away," Burgess croaked, her pale blue eyes filled with hate, her ghostly white skin flushed a deep, angry red. "The first - clear shot they have - they'll take you out!"
"Then we'll have to make sure we don't give them one," Vancha laughed, covering her mouth with a hand before she could reply. His smile faded. "I can't come back for you," he said to us. "If you stay, you're on your own."
"We know," Mr Crepsley said.
Vancha glanced up at the sun. "You'd better surrender straightaway and pray to the gods that they bundle you into a cell without windows."
"Aye." Mr Crepsley's teeth were chattering, partly from the pain in his ankle, partly from fear of the deadly rays of the sun.
Leaning forward, Vancha whispered so that Burgess and the soldier couldn't hear. "If I escape, I'll return for the Vampaneze Lord. I'll wait in the cavern where we fought last night. I'll give you until midnight. If you aren't there by then, I'll go after him alone."
Mr Crepsley nodded. "We will do our best to break out. If I cannot walk, Darren and Harkat will escape without me." He stared searchingly at us. "Yes?"
"Yes," Harkat said.
I stared back silently a moment longer, then dropped my gaze. "Yes," I muttered reluctantly.
Vancha grunted, then stuck out his free hand. We all joined a hand to his. "Luck," he said, and each of us repeated it in turn.
Then, without waiting, Vancha stood and walked away, Burgess held stiffly in front of him. He'd dropped the megaphone on his way over. Now he stopped to pick it up and address the troops again. "I'm making a break for it!" he bellowed pleasantly. "I know it's your job to stop me, but if you fire, your boss dies too. If you're wise, you'll wait for me to make an error. After all," he chuckled, "you've got cars and helicopters. I'm on foot. I'm sure you can keep pace with me until the time's right to pounce."
Tossing aside the megaphone, Vancha lifted the Chief Inspector off the ground, held her in front of him like a doll, and ran.
A senior officer darted for the megaphone, snatched it up and issued orders. "Hold your fire!" he shouted. "Don't break ranks. Wait for him to stumble or drop her. He can't escape. Train your sights on him, wait for a clean shot, then let him have it in the?"
He stopped abruptly. He'd been watching Vancha race towards a blockade at the end of the street as he was talking, but in the blink of an eye the vampire had disappeared. Vancha had hit flitting speed, and to the humans it seemed as if he'd simply vanished into thin air.
As the police and soldiers crowded forward in disbelief, guns cocked, staring at the ground as though they thought Vancha and their Chief had sunk into it, Mr Crepsley, Harkat and I grinned at each other.
"At least one of us is in the clear," Mr Crepsley said.
"We would have been too, if you weren't such a clumsy ox," I grunted.
Mr Crepsley glanced up at the sun and his smile slipped. "If they leave me in a cell which is open to the sun," he said quietly, "I will not wait to burn to death. I will escape or die trying."
I nodded grimly. "We all will."
Harkat pulled his soldier around so that he was facing us. The young man's face was green with terror and he was incapable of speech.
"Do we leave him or - try to use him as a bargaining chip?" Harkat asked.
"Leave him," I said. "They're less likely to shoot if we give ourselves up freely. If we try bargaining now, after Vancha has escaped with their boss, I think they'll mow us down."
"We must leave our weapons too," Mr Crepsley said, laying his knives aside.
I didn't want to part with my sword, but common sense prevailed and I left it in a heap with Mr Crepsley's knives, Harkat's axe, and the other bits and pieces we'd been carrying. Then we rolled up the arms of our sleeves, raised our hands above our heads, shouted that we were surrendering, and walked out - Mr Crepsley hopping on one leg - to be arrested and imprisoned by the dark-faced, trigger-itchy officers of the law, who handcuffed us, cursed us, bundled us into vans and drove us away - to prison.
