Anita Blake 20bis - Beauty: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Outtake Read Online Free PDF Page B

rising up off me, taking his arm from behind my back so he could stand up and face them. I was left lying on my back on the table, watching the vampire hitting the men, careless blows with no training behind them, and my knights in uniform went flying. I took the moment they’d given me to roll off the other side of the table and to the floor beyond. I landed on the balls of my feet and fingertips; the heels of my Mary Jane–style stilettos didn’t even touch floor as I crouched.
    I could see legs: the vampire still shackled, the other legs uniforms and slacks; police. Two of the policemen went flying. One uniform didn’t get back up, lying in a painful heap against the wall, but two other sets of legs, one uniform and one slacks, were still struggling with the vampire. The shoes with the slacks were shiny and black like they’d been spit-polished, and I was almost sure it was Captain Dolph Storr.
    The vampire popped the chain on his shackles, and suddenly the fight was on. Shit! In the bad old days I could have gotten my gun from the locker where it was stored and shot his ass, but I didn’t have a warrant of execution for this vampire. Zerbrowski and I had lied to him. Without the warrant, we couldn’t just shoot him. Fuck.
    I stood up in time to see Dolph’s six-foot, eight-inch frame wrapped around the much smaller body of the vampire. Dolph had his arms around the vampire’s shoulders, with his own hands behind the vampire’s head. It was a classic full nelson, and Dolph was big enough that against most humans he’d have won, but he was struggling to keep the hold on the vampire, as the uniform struggled to pin one of the vampire’s arms. Then the uniform’s face went slack, and he tried to hit Dolph in the face. Dolph saw it coming, and ducked using the vampire’s trapped head as a shield.
    I yelled, “Don’t look the vampire in the eyes, damn it!” I went back over the table, sliding to the fight, because it was the quickest way I could think to get to Dolph. One of the other uniforms was struggling with the officer who had been mind-fucked by the vampire. The vampire reared back and bucked against Dolph’s hold, and his hands came loose. There was movement by the door, but the vampire was twisting in Dolph’s grip, and I was out of time to see what the backup was going to do.
    I kicked the vampire in the ribs, the way I’d been taught, visualizing the kick going into the ribs, through the body, and a few inches out the other side. That was the goal I’d been taught in judo, and even now that I was taking mixed martial arts the old training kicked in, and I aimed through the ribs and the wall beyond. I forgot two things: one, that I was more than human-strong now, and two, that I was wearing three-inch stilettos.
    The kick drove the vampire stumbling away from Dolph, a hand going to his ribs, as he leapt for me still on the table on my side. I kicked him again, this time aiming for the sternum, aiming to take the breath out of him, as if he’d been human and needed to breathe all the time. In a fight, you fall back on training, no matter what you’re fighting.
    My foot caught him square in the chest, my stiletto sank into his sternum, and the force of the kick drove my heel upward toward his heart. I had a moment to feel the heel sink home, a second to wonder if three inches of stiletto would hit his heart, and then he reacted to the stab, and I realized there was a strap on my shoe, and my heel was stuck in his chest, because he moved away, and my foot went with him, and the rest of me slid off the table. I was short enough that I had to put my hands on the floor to keep from just dangling from his chest. There was nothing I could do to protect myself, or to keep my skirt from inching down. I had a moment of modesty fail as the thigh-highs and thong were exposed to the room. Shit! But if my modesty took the worst of it, I could live with that.
    A bright white light began to fill the room. The