She leaned out her window, trying to get a better look. One of the men broke free and headed toward her, looking up. His blank eyes met hers, and Alexia knew that he was no vampire.
She bit back a scream of horror, no longer fascinated by the battle below. It was a visage she had seen before: the wax-faced man from her botched abduction. In the light of the moon, his skin had a dull metallic sheen like pewter, so smooth and lifeless she shuddered in abject revulsion. The letters still marked his forehead, sootlike, VIXI. He saw her, pale nightgown against the darkened interior of the slumbering house, and grinned. As before, it was like no grin she had ever seen, a slashed unnatural opening full of perfect square white teeth, splitting across his head as a tomato will split when it is dropped into boiling water.
He ran toward her. A smooth three stories of brick lay between them, yet somehow Alexia knew there was no safety in that.
One of the other men broke away from the fighting group and sprinted after her attacker. Alexia doubted he would arrive in time. The wax-faced man moved with utter efficiency and economy of motion, less a man running than a water snake slithering.
But his pursuer clearly was a vampire, and as Miss Tarabotti watched, she realized she had never before seen a vampire run at full speed. He was all liquid grace, his fine Hessian boots making only a buzzlike whispering on the cobblestones.
The wax-faced man reached the Loontwills' house and began to climb up the brick side. Unhindered, spider like, he oozed up the wall. That utterly expressionless face of his remained tilted up at Alexia. It was as though he were hypnotized by her face, fixated on her and only her. VIXI. She read the letters over and over and over again. VIXI. I do not want to die, thought Alexia. I have not yet yelled at Lord Maccon for his most recent crass behavior! Thrown into a panic, she was just reaching to slam her shutters closed, knowing they were but flimsy protection from such a creature, when the vampire struck.
Her supernatural protector leaped up and forward, landing on the wax-faced man's back. He grabbed the creature's head and yanked it around, hard. Either the added weight or the yank caused the wax-faced man to let go of the brick wall. They both fell, landing with a horrendous bone-crunching crash in the alley below. Neither screamed nor spoke, even after such a fall. Their companions continued their equally silent battle behind them, without pausing to observe the tumble.
Miss Tarabotti was certain the wax-faced man must be dead. He had fallen nearly an entire story, and only supernatural folk could survive such an experience unscathed. As no werewolf or vampire would ever look the way the wax-faced man looked, he must, perforce, be some kind of normal human.
Her supposition was in error, for the wax-faced man rolled about on top of the vampire's fallen form and then sprang once more to his feet, turned, and single-mindedly headed back toward the house. And Alexia.
The vampire, hurt but not incapacitated, anticipated this move and had an iron grip with both hands on one of the wax-faced man's legs. Instead of trying to fight off the vampire, the man behaved in an entirely illogical manner. He simply kept jerking in Alexia's direction, like a child denied a treat and incapable of being distracted by anything else. He dragged the vampire behind him by slow degrees. Every time he surged toward her, Alexia flinched, even though she was high above him in her third-story room.
Impasse reigned. The fight in the alley beyond seemed evenly matched, and the wax-faced man could not get to Alexia so long as the vampire held on to his leg.
The sound of heavy-booted footsteps and a sharp, high-pitched whistle rent the night air. Running around the corner of the back street came two constables. Rows of protective silver and wooden straight pins decorated the front of their uniforms, gleaming in the moonlight. One of them held an Adam's cross pistol, cocked and loaded with a deadly sharp wooden stake. The other held a Colt Lupis revolver, the silver-bullet-slinger out of America—only the best from that most superstitious of countries. Upon seeing the nature of the participants, he put the Colt away and pulled out a large wooden policeman's baton stake instead.
One of the men fighting in the alley yelled something sharp and commanding in Latin. Then he and his companion ran off, presumably leaving only BUR agents behind. The wax-faced man stopped jerking toward Alexia's window. Instead, he turned on the hapless fallen vampire and lashed out at the supernatural man's face. There was a scrunch of breaking bone. Still, the vampire would not let go. The wax-faced man stepped inward, put all his weight on his trapped leg, and then shifted downward with his free foot, slamming the vampire's wrists with all his might. Alexia heard another ghastly wet crunching sound. With both wrists shattered, the vampire was forced to relax his grip. With one final, emotionless grin up at Alexia, the wax-faced man turned and raced away, battering through the two policemen as though they were not even there. The one with the cross pistol got off an excellent shot, but the wooden bullet did not even cause the wax man to stumble.
Alexia's vampire protector stood, shaky. His nose was broken, and his wrists hung limply, but when he looked up at Miss Tarabotti, his face was full of satisfaction. Alexia winced in sympathy at the blood spattered over his cheeks and chin. She knew he would heal quickly enough, especially if they could get him to fresh blood soon, but she could not help feeling empathy for his current pain, which must be acute.
A stranger, Alexia realized, a vampire, had just saved her from she knew not what unpleasantness. Saved her, a preternatural. She put her hands together and raised her fingertips to her lips, bowing forward in a silent prayer of thanks. The vampire nodded acknowledgment and then motioned her to step back inside the bedroom.