"After seven hours at the computer, I was exhausted and felt strong enough for a walk. In addition, during my search, I ate all the food we had in the rooms, and by the third lunch at our guesthouse's dining room, I didn't want to attract attention. But the hunger was almost unbearable.

I got ready, put on a jacket, and went outside. I had no appetite for anything long dead, for any animal tortured by stress in slaughterhouses, for any meat stored for tens, sometimes hundreds of hours in freezers. I passed by the signs of all the shops and pubs and headed straight to the guy from whom I recently bought a lamb.

The meadows where the sheep grazed were located south of the main road crossing the town, just above one of the local ski slopes. It was no more than three kilometers from the road, and on the left side was a reservoir on the Stanovnice River. I didn't feel like starting the car, so I walked.

Soon, I turned off the generously dimensioned asphalt road onto a narrow gravel path, a small grove on the right had been planted only recently; I could distinguish rows of trees. The forest on the left had many more decades, and invasive species had altered its face. At times, it resembled the vegetation that was here before people came. But that probably wasn't true.

As soon as I moved away from the reservoir, the path began to steeply ascend. In a bend with gravel-lined surroundings to allow oncoming cars to pass, in the shadow of the trees, a Jeep Patriot was parked. The latest model, a bit dusty. A car that looks like an off-road vehicle but can handle at most a dirt road. I kept walking.

My lamb supplier had a simple shed built on the edge of his pastures, adapted to the technologies of the twenty-first century only so much as necessary. The main concession to modern times was that instead of a smoke hole in the roof, it had a chimney and simple stoves. But now, in front of the barbed wire fence where he herded sheep, there was a Porsche Panamera. It was surprising that it had come this far.

"I don't understand why you won't tell us," the sentence was spoken in Czech but with the accent of Italian waiters delivering pizza. It was the same in English, German, and Czech.

Instead of an answer, there was the sound of a fist hitting a soft part of the body. And a quiet groan.

Sounds that are the same in all languages of the world.

I chose a longer route covered by a row of linden trees and quietly moved towards the wooden shed from behind which the voice came.

I recognized the man from whom I bought the lamb only by his clothes. He stood with his arms outstretched, tied to two trees, an imperfect imitation of Jesus Christ. His face was marked in a way that only professionals can do—maximum pain and a minimum of fatal injuries that a good surgeon couldn't repair. The shirt on his abdomen was soaked with blood; he must have received quite a beating. But he still stood on his feet, or rather, the tightly pulled ropes kept him on his feet.

"So damn tell us what you know about him."

That was spoken by the guy not more than five feet eight inches tall in a poorly tailored suit, obviously lacking the talent to mask the shoulders' width of a ladder. He rested in the shade of a small plum tree, his face glistening with sweat. Beating someone up occasionally takes effort.

"He won't say anything. Not unless we really get into him," the reply came in an Italian accent.

From the shed. Immediately, its author emerged into the light. He looked like the twin of his partner, mainly due to the body build; they weren't too similar in the face. In his hand, he held hooks for hanging skinned animals. They gleamed, probably made of modern rust-resistant steel.

"You're right," said the glyhen who had just attempted interrogation. He stood up and approached the tortured man. His arms flashed, the ropes ended up cut on the ground. He tucked the knife back into its sheath and, with the other hand, pushed the captive to the ground. Then, with terrifying ease, he grabbed one leg and lifted him back into the air. He held him, watching thoughtfully as the limp body swayed in his grip, dragging his hands along the ground.

The second glyhen, meanwhile, was preparing the hooks.

They were planning to hang him alive by his Achilles' tendons and then continue working on him with knives.

"Maybe he'll tell us something now," said the strongman in broken Czech.

He still held the man in the air.

"Fuck off," came a clear answer.

I would have promised them everything at that moment and then prayed that I could keep it.

I felt the cold steel on my index finger. I stepped out of the shadows.

"You're not treating people decently, and it will backfire on you," I announced and squeezed the trigger.

First, I shot the one with the hooks, then with the second shot, the strong guy whose efforts to hold the captive had slowed him down. Neither fell to the ground; both reached for their weapons with inhuman determination. The S&W .500 bullets got stuck somewhere in their bodies, damaging them enough to slow them down significantly. But they were not dead. Now I expected it, though.

I shot again. The first one hit the chest, in the area of the heart, the second one hit the neck. Only now did the unnaturally strong fingers loosen, and my lamb supplier fell to the ground. There was one last bullet in the S&W. But I was already turning and looking for a target behind me. I rushed the action to save the man and didn't have time to locate their backup team. I estimated that the lovers of miserable off-road vehicles who had come with a Jeep would be approaching me on the road. In urban shoes and clothes, they wouldn't want to push through the undergrowth.

I shot at the moment I saw the first silhouette, and instinct told me I was aiming correctly. I missed; that guy threw himself so quickly that it seemed impossible. I hoped he just reacted to my shooting position, that he didn't see the flying projectile; that would be fortunate.

Two steps behind him, another one appeared.

But even counting on missing, I was prepared. I'm learning. Sometimes not the fastest, but I'm learning.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He didn't concentrate on my second hand; until the last moment, I kept it hidden behind my body. And I didn't aim; I relied on instinctive shooting."

With a crack, the first .600 Nitro Express bullet hit the faster one and scattered him. Unfortunately, it didn't stop him. The last five steps, and he's with me. I missed with the second shot, but at the same time, I managed to move out of the way of his movement, and the hit vampire whizzed past me at the speed of a derailed express train. However, the second one was rushing like a precisely guided missile; sparks flew from the gravel under his feet.

I knew I couldn't dodge anymore. I squeezed the trigger again without aiming, and then he picked me up. We flew through the air for several meters and stopped only against the wall of the shed. Throughout the time, I kept the .600 and tried to ensure that the barrel was pointing away from me.

We slid to the ground; the vampire clutched me by the shoulder and neck, but his grip lacked the crushing force tearing skin, muscles, and tendons. It will take a while before he squeezes the life out of me.

I squeezed the trigger.

He jerked, suddenly not holding me, and slowly slid to the ground; he still tried to catch my clothes with his fingers but failed.

Neither of them was dead, but they didn't seem ready for an immediate rematch.

I holstered the .600; I had to concentrate intensely because the pain in my left arm was so intense that it almost paralyzed me. Mostly shoulder ligaments. Shooting a one-handed cannon from the side really didn't do me any good. I opened the cylinder of the Smith & Wesson; the ejector tossed the casings into my palm. I loaded five more with the speed loader and closed the cylinder again.

The precise metallic click made me feel better, making the nausea after hitting the wall with the back of my head easier to deal with now. I could handle this.

The vampire, whose chest I had demolished with one shot and whose belly I hit with the second, looked like he was trying to stand up, and he might succeed in a moment. His eyes were murky, without pupils, dominated by a dark red color. His movements were no longer human at all; there was something mechanical or insectoid in them. I recalled Agnieszka's explanation, the alien structure animating vampires and making them practically immortal monsters. Or rather theoretically. Even a wizard won't resist honest steel, a sentence from the books I read as a boy came to my mind.

I buried the revolver's barrel in the eye socket of the vampire; his hand surprisingly quickly moved, and his claw quickly gripped the barrel. A claw, a human palm didn't look like this or couldn't move like this. I didn't wait for anything else and squeezed the trigger. The head jerked as it absorbed almost three thousand joules of energy from the shot of the large-caliber revolver.

Now he was dead; I didn't have to convince myself of that; I knew it. I have, we have instincts for these things.

My lamb supplier was already on his feet, and considering what he had just gone through, he looked unbelievably normal. He saw what I had just done and didn't say a word. Instead, he entered the shed with two quick steps, and when he returned after a second, he held a double-barreled shotgun in his hand. He aimed it at the last living one of the four, a vampire who had managed to get up on one knee. A little longer, and he'll walk away on his own.

"You have to destroy the brain, otherwise it's useless," I warned him.

I didn't feel like going for another shot from any revolver myself. It hurt.

The guy listened, stuck the barrel of the shotgun into the vampire's mouth, and pressed both triggers at once.

The skull held, but the cervical spine did not; the head separated from the body, and what remained inside spewed out.

Now all four of them were dead. Surprisingly, the wave of nausea passed; finally, I was sure that I didn't have to lean against the wall and could stay on my feet.

We stared at each other in silence for a while. I understood him. He questioned himself if what had just happened to him was some terrible dream or reality.

"Why didn't you tell them what they were asking about?" I asked about the thing that occurred to me right at the beginning.

The guy looked at me.

"They pissed me off, behaved as if they owned the whole world," he answered without hesitation.

I waited to see if he would continue, while I reloaded a round into the Smith & Wesson and a complete cylinder into the .600. What if there's another car here that I overlooked.

"And then they started threatening me," he continued. "You know, I have cancer. The doctor says I only have the last stage left. Most painkillers don't work, and sometimes it hurts like hell. I could only laugh at their threats."

He really didn't look like they scared him.

"That's a hell of a big gun," he pointed to my special.

"I have it for them," I revealed and started looking for the easiest way to hide the bodies.

"What are they?" he asked.

I looked at the vampires, who had already begun to decompose at their typical speed. The glyhens still looked normal for now - like ordinary corpses.

"I don't know, regards from hell?" I suggested.

"Well, they don't remind me of any of our politicians or their lackeys," he hinted.

I looked at him, and he seemed to be deadly serious.

"They are vampires," I said.

"Hmm," he shook his head. "They didn't teach us about them in school."

"Where to take them?" I asked. "You'll have trouble if someone sees them here."

"To Karolinka, to the reservoir. It's deep, and if we weigh them down well, they won't float for thirty years. It's not far."

Soon there won't be anything left of the vampires, and the glyhen bodies had a structure halfway between oak wood and kevlar composite. They probably won't swim easily.

But I kept that to myself and started inspecting the dead.

"And what about the cars?" I asked when we finished with exertion. "Also to Karolinka?"

He just shook his head.

"The reservoir serves as a drinking water reservoir. Water can handle four corpses; it's clean and full of life. But oil and diesel, that would be a shame. There are a lot of guys around here who transport cars to Slovakia. You can negotiate with them."

"I could exchange them for another car, something more ordinary?" I asked.

"I would say yes," he nodded.

"I'll be back in two or three days," I said goodbye and handed him the technical documents for both cars. I kept the personal documents of the dead, although I didn't believe I would find out anything from them.

The lamb, which was the original reason for my visit, was no longer on my agenda; I had enough killing for today.

I returned to the main road and, after a few attempts, found a lady selling rabbits. She brought me six skinned and still warm ones in a while, and I was glad I didn't have to take care of it myself.

"You've already bought lamb from Mr. Patsak, right?" she tried to start a conversation.

I added two more banknotes to the money she demanded.

"I'm a cooking enthusiast," I explained, "you know, local cuisine, local resources," I added.

She definitely nodded.

"Mr. Patsak wasn't in good shape today," I answered her unspoken question.

"Well, you know, he's very sick," she revealed to me.

I nodded neutrally and said goodbye.

He is still full of beans, if you ask me.