Felix's first two shots, like the deputy's, struck Roy. But while Kirk's hit Roy's chest, Felix's slammed into his forehead. And while Kirk's were .44 magnum hollowpoints, they were only lead. Felix's were nine-millimeter silver blessed by the Vicar of Christ on Earth and they tore half-inch-wide holes through the skull. Roy shrieked and smacked his hands over the wounds and fell writhing to the cement.

But Felix didn't see this. By the time Roy had fallen, Felix had already shot the old woman behind Adam twice, in the throat and the chest, had shot the small one on the crossbow once, in the stomach, and had put one shot each in the next three ghouls to emerge from the shadows: a high school teacher still wearing his shattered glasses, a middle-aged mother of three reported missing for two weeks, and a young drug dealer who waited too late one night to make a buy.

They were goons, still. All of them. Too recently dead to have thoughts or ideas or notions or sense of self. But they had always known hunger.

And now they remembered pain.

Searing, irredeemable agony shot through their wounds, wounds that would never heal. For a moment, the monsters forgot their prey, forgot the smell of blood, forgot their thirst. They thought only of the pain.

Felix strode forward during that instant, ejecting the clip with his right hand and snapping in a second with his left.

Then he worked a cartridge into the chamber, making all three actions appear, somehow, to be a single motion.

Like a robot, thought Cat at the time. Like a machine.

Felix paused in the center of the area lit by the two lanterns and briefly surveyed the tormented creatures surrounding him. Then he shot them some more. When the second clip was emptied and the third had replaced it, he stepped over to Cat.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice calm and unhurried.

And oddly kind, thought Cat, staring into those dead eyes.

Cat nodded.

"Can you get up and move?" asked Felix in the same tone.

Cat nodded again.

"Then let's do it," suggested the gunman, holding out a hand to help. "Let's get out of here."

Cat took the hand and pulled himself up. He still felt wobbly alter the pounding he had taken. But he was all right. Beside them Adam, who had been following it all, was also rising. The wound at his temple had stopped bleeding.

"C'mon, everybody," called Felix in Jack's direction. "Let's move."

Then he started firing again and for the next few seconds there were only the explosive sounds from his weapon and the raucous misery of his victims. The goons who had managed to drag themselves upright after the first two volleys were sent back to the floor, screaming and writhing and pounding at their wounds.

None approached the Team and only one other appeared from the shadows, a middle-aged man wearing farmer's overalls and a jagged gash from his left ear to left shoulder.

Felix shot him three times, twice in the chest, once in the head. He fell shrieking to the floor like the rest.

Jack, staring as transfixed as the others at this incredible display of cool destruction, managed to gather himself and everyone else up and get them toward the door while Felix guarded their rear, emptying clip after clip into the monsters.

"Okay, Felix!" he called as the door came open and the sunlight flooded the chamber. "Come along."

Felix was in the middle of reloading. He paused, looked at his boss, nodded, and trotted toward the sunlight.

A few seconds later all of them, Jack, Cat, Adam, Felix, and the young deputy were standing in the sunlight beside Carl's winch. And amazingly, none were seriously hurt.

Incredible, thought Jack. Five minutes ago I thought we were all dead. And then, like everyone else, he just stood and stared at the gunman for a while.

Felix didn't seem to notice. He sat down on a curb and lit a cigarette and stared at a spot on the street between his feet.

Carl watched them watching Felix awhile.

"What happened?" he asked at last.

Jack looked at him, thought a minute. "Silver bullets," he replied.

Carl smiled. "They worked?"

Cat nodded toward Felix. "They worked for him."

"Did they kill 'em?" asked Carl excitedly.

The gunman surprised them all by answering.

"No," he replied firmly, looking at Carl. "They didn't kill them."

"Well, no," conceded Jack after a moment. "But they sure as shit got their attention."

And everyone who had been there laughed.

Except Felix.

"It hurts them, Carl," added Adam excitedly. "It really hurts them!"

"It sure did that," added the deputy, shaking his head and putting his own pistol back in its holster.

"That reminds me," said Jack Crow, "thanks, deputy. What's your name again?"

"Kirk Thompson. Only I didn't do much."

Cat smiled. "We'll get you some silver bullets."

Kirk looked at the others. "Are they silver? Really silver?"

"Blessed by Holy Mother Church," replied Adam.

"Reckon I could use some at that," smiled the deputy.

"We could all use 'em," Jack Crow said brusquely, "and we all will." He lit a cigarette and announced a decision. "Carl, get everybody that goes inside a gun with silver bullets. And you, Adam, are gonna tote the extra crossbow if you're still sure you can handle one."

"I'd be happy to demonstrate," offered the priest confidently.

Jack gave him a wry smile. "I'll take your word for it, padre." Then he turned to the others. "This is the new deal: Cat, you're on the far right to do the detecting. Adam, you stand inside Cat next to me with the other crossbow. Then it'll be me and then Felix on my left. Cat, you tell us when they're coming. Felix'll hold 'em off until I can shoot one, with Adam backing me up. Then we go straight out the door, with Felix holding the rest of 'em off until we can get to the sunlight. Nobody else shoots unless Felix or I tells them to."

He looked at the gunman, still sitting on the curb staring between his boots.

"That okay with you, Felix?"

Felix looked at him, nodded dully. "I'd like some more light," he said calmly.

"We got more light, Carl?"

"I think there's one or two in the motorhome. I'll have to look."

Jack shook his head. "We'll look. C'mon, Felix, let's... Hey! Hit the winch."

All turned and followed Jack's gaze to the cable running from the winch to the warehouse door.

"It's stopped moving!" noticed Carl.

Jack tossed his cigarette angrily to the street. "Hell, yes, it's stopped moving. Did you expect the damn thing to stay caught forever while we stood around yappin'?"

But it hadn't gotten loose. Carl's winch dragged out the crossbow bolt still tangled in the monster's clothing. But the monster was dust.

"We killed it!" cried Cat, amazed. "Indoors! Without sunlight!"

"Yeah," muttered Jack.

"I don't understand," said the deputy. "You've never done this before? In the movies, they always..."

"Forget the movies," growled Jack. "They don't change into bats or wolves, either."

"But stakes do kill them," offered Adam.

"Yeah," replied Jack, lighting another cigarette. He walked over and shifted the dusty clothes with a chain-mailed boot. "You know, we knew the stakes hurt 'em. I guess we just never managed to keep one on one long enough. Before, they always tore loose if we didn't get 'em out and burning pretty quick."

"That," suggested Cat with a smile toward Felix, "was before the Lone Ranger, here."

Felix eyed him blankly. "Could be," he said at last.

Jack laughed. "Damn well 'could be,' gunman. Those bullets keep 'em too miserable to get loose until it's too late." He walked a fast circle around the dusty clothes, surveying them from all sides. Then he stopped and stared at the locals, still too scared to approach.

"Ha!" he said at last, clapping his hands together and smiling. "C'mon, Felix! Let's see about your light."

"Hey, Cat," snarled Carl suddenly, reaching down for the first-aid kit at his feet, "did you know you and the padre are bleeding?"

Cat grinned. "We assumed so. We were so popular."

"All right, dammit!" snarled Carl after he had tended their minor wounds, "what the hell happened in there?"

Cat and Adam exchanged a look. "Well," began Cat, "first Felix froze."

And then they told Carl about Cat fixing the light and about the little fiend wrapping him up and about Adam getting whipped by the cable and then about Jack getting Cat loose just in time for the wave of ghouls and then Kirk came in and...

"And then Felix saved us," he added with a smile. "And here we are."

Carl snarled. "I thought you said Felix froze."

Cat shrugged. "He unfroze."

"And that's all it took?"

"You should have seen him."

"Pretty good?"

Cat looked at him. "More than 'pretty good.' You ever see a spaghetti western?"

"That good?"

Cat and Adam exchanged another look. "Better," they replied in unison.

Carl lit a cigarette and looked at them thoughtfully. "Fast draw?"

Adam shook his head. "More like a fast shot."

Cat nodded. "Like a goddamn machine gun."

"Hmm," muttered Carl to himself. "Did he aim?"

Cat stared at him. "Did he what?"

Adam spoke up. "I know what Carl means. No. He didn't. He just sort of... pointed?"

Carl grinned and nodded. "I knew it! Only uses one hand, too, right?"

Adam nodded.

Carl laughed. "I knew it," be repeated. "It's why he uses that tiny gun. It's the heaviest thing he can use with one hand." He stood and carried the first-aid kit back to his chair by the winch controls. "We got ourselves a gunman."

Jack Crow hadn't given a damn about the light. He had just wanted to get Felix alone. Oh, he went through the motions, finding two lanterns in their storage chest in the motorhome's bedroom. And he made sure they both worked, replacing the battery in one.

And then he got ready to talk.

Only, sitting there at the table with Felix blankly across from him, he didn't really know what to say. Or ask.

Finally, "You all right?" he blurted, too loudly.

Felix didn't startle. He just raised his eyes and looked at him.

"I mean," Jack amended, "are you ready to go back in?"

Felix's voice was soft. "Sure."

Jack still wasn't satisfied. "What woke you up in there?"

Felix thought a moment. "I'm not sure. The deputy's gun, I think."

And they were quiet for a while.

"Think it'll happen to you again?" asked Crow gently.

Felix's smile was so sad it hurt Jack to look at it as he said, "No. That part's over."

"Okay," replied Jack gruffly. Because he didn't know what else to say.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***