It was a long run back to the cabin. But David felt no sense of pursuit after that first night, and he made certain he'd broken his trail well enough and often enough that they wouldn't be able to follow him all the way home.

Megan actually met him in the woods, well out from the cabin, and practically flung herself at him. "Mack said you were almost here," she said when she finally stopped clinging to him and pulled back a bit. He smiled at her. She smiled back. "I'm so glad you're safe."

He grinned. "So am I! But come on. I have a lot to tell you guys, and I don't want to have to say it all twice."

They were shortly all seated around the kitchen table, with Alek leaning against the stove for lack of a fifth chair.

"So," said Megan, "What did you find?"

"I found something that scares me half to death," said David. "There's a kind of... underground city out there. I got inside it by pretending to be just another vampire. The first vampire I met said he'd been there a long time, apparently long enough that he barely knew about the Hunter, I think, so he didn't figure out who I was. I don't actually know now big the place was, I didn't get the chance to see much of it, but it's big enough to hold around fifty vampires, at least. And that's what's there. I was told there were forty-seven of them." He chuckled. "Forty-six now." He had banished any lingering guilt over Rob's death. Young and innocent as he had looked, David knew that he was anything but. His eagerness for the vampire cause proved that.

There were looks of shock and consternation around the table, and David nodded. "Yeah. They have something or other that makes synthetic blood for them, for daily feeding. And for the other... that salvage expedition. I passed the road train on my way down, and it was dead in the road. They took the whole crew alive, and are keeping them there. I was told that they're not allowed to torture them, but still..." He shook his head. "There's more though. They're not just content to keep that up, they're planning on taking down the cities. All of them. The ones here, and the ones everywhere, eventually. They want to destroy human civilization, keep humans as cattle, and rule the world. And while I don't know about the world, I do know they have a very good chance of at least taking the cities here."

They all exchanged glances, and then Alek said what they were all thinking. "So what are we going to do about it?"

"I don't know." David looked worried, and frustrated. "I've been turning it over and over and I can't think of anything. We have to at the very least get those humans out of there, and that alone would screw up their plans a lot, but I can't think of a way to do it. There are only five of us, they have us outnumbered nearly ten to one." And he tactfully didn't mention that two of the five would be of no use in a fight.

"What about getting city people to help?" asked Alek.

"We'll never get anybody official to do anything," said Megan. "They do not want to face the vampire problem at all. And trying to do it underground... I don't know. But what good are city humans going to be? They can't fight."

"Okay, lousy idea," said Alek ruefully. "I dunno. We could get me and Mack in there, probably. We might be able to let the humans out. I dunno what we'd do about the vampires though. Maybe we could somehow sneak them out?"

Megan shook her head. "What you need to do is to break them out during daylight. I know vampires can stay awake when the sun is up, even if it's really hard. But nearly all of them have to be asleep then, so you wouldn't have as many to worry about, and the humans would have a whole day to get away, before the vampires could chase them."

"A day isn't enough though," put in David. "I've run the distance to Delta, it's a full night's run for me. They'd cover maybe a third of that, which means that the vampires could catch up by midnight, kill them all, and still be back by dawn. Not going to work."

"And there's nowhere else that they could go?" asked Megan.

David shook his head.

"The road train," said Alek. "How far is that? And do you know how damaged it is?"

"The road train isn't far. I think it might still be a little more than a day's walk, particularly if any of them are injured, but... they could probably make it. The lights are out though. They cut the cable that powers them."

"That's all?" said Jeff, suddenly intent.

"Yes. The vampire I talked to said they'd cut the cable, and the lights on the engine stayed running, but weren't enough."

"The batteries will be dead then. But a cut cable, I can fix that. And it's bound to have fuel in it, they still had a ways to go."

"You can fix it?" asked Megan

Jeff smiled. "Yep. I said I was on the crew of a road train. I was a mechanic. Very junior, but the lights are the first thing they teach you. I know exactly where the cable will be, and how to repair it."

They looked at each other. There was a long silence. Then Alek said, "This is totally insane, isn't it?"

Mack laughed. "Hell yes! But we're going to do it anyway."

David nodded, caught between excitement and fear. "We need to work out some details, and really go over this, make sure we're not forgetting anything. I'll tell you everything I know about the city, and about their leader. But yes, we're going to do it."