"Yes," somebody replied. My heart gave such a jolt that for a second I thought it had popped free of its tubing and rolled down next to my stomach.

It was a woman"s voice. She sounded like a grandmother.

"I"m here, too," said another elderly-sounding woman, her voice coming from the other side of the room.

Both women giggled.

I heard something that sounded like chains rattling. I stayed put, hoping that my eyes would quickly adjust to the dark. C"mon, eyes, let"s get a move on. Let me see the freaky grandmothers. Let"s go. Aw, man, this sucks.

"Who are you?" I asked.

More giggling. More chains rattling.

"Who are you?" asked the woman to my left. She sounded like she was maybe five or six feet away. Not nearly far enough.

"I"m Andrew Mayhem," I said. "I mean you no harm."

The giggling turned into outright laughter. I figured I deserved it. I wiped some sweat off my forehead and continued to stay where I was.

"We mean you lots of harm," said the woman to my right.

"Lots and lots and lots," her companion added.

"I bet your blood tastes gooooooooood."

"Real, real good."

As I looked from side to side, I could now vaguely see the two figures. They seemed to be chained to the wall. I slowly backed up against the door, hoping that their chains were sufficiently short to keep them from tasting my blood.

I knew they weren"t vampires. I didn"t believe in vampires. I did, however, believe in crazy old ladies with a blood fetish, and I found them rather unnerving.

"Should we bite him?" asked the woman to my left.

"Bite him and drink him all up?"

"Yes, indeedy."

"Mmmmmmmmmm."

I clenched my fists. "I don"t want to have to hurt you," I announced. "But I will. I"ll do it."

The women began to slowly walk toward me, chains dragging on the floor behind them. I was terrified, but at the same time I tried to convince myself that they weren"t exactly unbeatable opponents. A halfway decent kick should take care of the problem, right?

"Tasty, salty blood..."

"Warm, sticky blood..."

"So, uh, do either of you ladies know why they call this room the Pit? Seems kind of silly to me, don"t you think?"

The old women were now only a couple of feet away. I still couldn"t see well enough in the darkness to be sure, but it looked like both of them had really long fingernails, almost claws.

I tried to kick the woman on my left and missed. Not because it was a lame kick, but because the woman moved with unexpected agility.

"Gooey, slimy blood..."

"Spraying, showery blood..."

"Spurty, sticky blood..."

They"d already said "sticky" but I didn"t mention it. I threw a punch at the woman on the right that also missed. Both women let out a delighted squeal and pounced at the same time, pulling me to the ground. I felt teeth on my arms, and so help me I screamed like a little girl.

The problem with having so many naked women trying to hump me senseless was...

Actually, there was no problem with it at all.

While I can"t admit to being in the peak of physical condition (I get winded tying my shoes, which I can"t see unless I suck in my gut), I"ve got a spring-loaded pelvis and can crack walnuts with my b.u.t.t cheeks. In fact, I"ve done the walnut thing on a bet before. Watching the guy eat them afterwards was priceless.

That said, I was in good form when the Olympic Copulation began. I"m not quite p.o.r.n star material, but what I lack in size I make up for in speed.

I figured out early on that not much was required from me in the reciprocation department. Everyone wanted a Bit-O-Harry, and I was happy to oblige. I just laid back, closed my eyes, and let the ladies take what they wanted.

There was a bad moment, when I felt someone with a mustache kissing me, but it turned out not to be a mustache.

Yes, there was sucking. And groping. And fondling. And pulling. And thrusting. And lots of other ing words. And by the time it was finally over, I had to admit that it was indeed the greatest thirty seconds of my life.

"That"s enough, baby." I forced back an overzealous Harry fan. "No use trying to prime a dry pump."

I disentangled my legs, pulled my fingers out from wherever they"d been, and shoved away some tattooed vixen writhing on the floor, because she was writhing on my pants.

"Any of you ladies know where the back door is?"

I slapped away an intrusive hand.

"Not that one. The exit."

"Aren"t you enjoying yourself, Mr. McGlade?"

It was Vlad. He"d taken off the Hefty Bag ensemble, and stood naked in the doorway. The last time I"d seen anything that small, it was stuck in a hors d"oeuvre.

"I"m having a blast, Vladdy old boy. But all good things must end, and frankly, you"re all a bunch of psycho freaks. So I"m afraid that-Jesus!"

The vixen nearest to me had sunk her bridgework into my ankle, and it hurt like...well...getting bitten on the ankle.

I pulled back, then felt a similar pain on my left hand. And then on my right arm. I kicked away my attackers and limped over to an empty corner of the room to finish pulling up my pants.

"Blood is the elixir of life, Mr. McGlade."

Vlad bared his own fangs, and I noticed Little Vlad waking up to see what all the excitement was about. Even turgid, it was more appropriate for picking locks than satisfying the ladies.

"You"ve got a real tiny rodney there, Vlad. No wonder you"re a power-mad s.a.d.i.s.t. The shrinkological term is "overcompensation"."

Vlad squeaked his squeaky squeak-laugh.

"You"re to be the ultimate sacrifice, Mr. McGlade. We"re going to eat you alive, then deliver your corpse to the president of the network."

"I"ve met him. He"d prefer tranny hookers."

I zipped up and glanced around the room. Naked, drooling vampires were closing in from all directions. There were at least a dozen. The only door to the room was the one Vlad stood in front of. The wall behind me felt solid, final.

"They didn"t listen to our letter writing campaign," Vlad whined. "Or our Internet pet.i.tion. So maybe your drained, lifeless corpse will show them we aren"t fooling around."

I raised an eyebrow.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, d.i.n.ky?"

"Fatal Autonomy. We want it back on the air."

I had enough bravado left to fake a belly laugh.

"You"ve got to be kidding! You lured me here, humped me dry, and now want to kill me, all to get my show renewed?"

Vlad got a crazy look in his eye. Well, a more crazy look.

"The whole warren loved the show. We watched it every Thursday night." His voice became school-teachery. "What is your favorite TV show, children?"

"Fatal Autonomy," they droned in unison.

I pinched myself. I"d had this dream before. Usually, though, there were a few recognizable actresses in the orgy pile. Like the chicks from Friends. Or the Golden Girls. And no fat naked vampire guy who was hung like a Smurf.

"Look, Vlad, we"re all upset when our favorite shows get cancelled. I had to see a therapist for a while after Xena ended. But killing me won"t..."

"We have a script," Vlad said. I half expected him to pull a sheaf of papers out of his a.s.s and show me. "It"s called Fatal Autonomy, The Rise of the Vlad Pires."

Everyone thinks they"re a writer.

"In the script, do you have a bigger Johnson?"

"Get your jokes in now, Mr. McGlade. When your body is found, the media frenzy will ignite a resurgence of interest in your series. The public will demand to know what really happened to Harry McGlade. And next season, they"ll find out-in the first half of a two-parter."

"You"re crazy. Television doesn"t work like that."

Actually, it kinda did. But I didn"t want to encourage the fruit loop.

"Children of the night...ATTACK!"

Even though they"d s.e.xed me up, I"d had enough of Vlad and the Snuggle Bunch. Two Pires with lunging fangs got a Moe-style head-crunch, which sounded more like a dull thud than two coconuts. .h.i.tting. I planted a heel onto the nose of a some nude skinny guy, drilled an elbow into the cheek of a chick who moments ago was making me sing soprano, and then sprinted right at Vlad, stepping on legs and spines and necks, and giving him a swift kick in the peanuts.

Vlad cradled his delicates like a child holding two raisins and a bran flake, and I pushed past and ran into Crazy Chainsaw Goon, just as he was yanking the cord.

I couldn"t hear my screams above the roar of the saw, but I could guess they oozed machismo and self-confidence. I took a quick left through a doorway, another left down a hall, yanked open another door, and flew into a room filled with Vlad and a dozen angry, naked vampires.

I hugged my knees and Crazy Chainsaw Goon toppled over me, falling face first onto his appliance. He must have pinned down his trigger finger, because the saw revved and came up through his shoulder blades like a shark fin, misting me with blood.

I pushed backwards, bare feet sliding in the gore, and scrambled back down the hall with a flock of Pires on my heels.

Which is where I met up with Crazy Knife Goon and his Swiss Army Buffalo Skinner.

He slashed. I ducked. But I didn"t duck far enough, and the blade dinged off my scalp. The pain was painful. I fell onto my b.u.t.t, and he raised the blade for the coup de grace.

"Hold on!" I said, showing him my palm.

He paused, holding the striking position. I pressed my free hand to my head.

"Look what you did. You really hurt me, you idiot."

Knife Goon shifted from one foot to the other. "I...uh..."

"Don"t just stand there. Get me a bandage or something. Jesus, I"m gonna need st.i.tches."

"Sorry," he mumbled, lowering the knife and turning around.

I planted both my hands on his lower back (okay, it was his a.s.s, but this was special circ.u.mstances-I"m 100% all man, baby) and pushed as hard as I could.

He teetered forward, and I scuttled past and made it to my feet, through a door, down a hall, and into the room where Vlad and all the naked vampires were.

Two of them grabbed my legs, sinking their pointy dentures into my knees. Knees are harder than tooth enamel, and I won that encounter, though one incisor wedged itself deep enough into my kneecap to bring macho, manly tears to my eyes.

Another Pire, of the naked male variety, straddled me and put me in a choke hold, which I didn"t appreciate because a) I hate being choked and 2) his naked maleness was flapping in my face.

I buried inhibition and played cherry picker, not actually pulling the fruit from the tree but squeezing hard enough to feel pits. I tugged him aside, and then a blast shook the room and two Pires flopped on top of me, victims of Vlad"s shotgun.

"Enough of this!" he thundered. "It ends now!"

I pulled the nearest corpse over my head as the shotgun boomed again, her back taking the worst of it, but-son of a b.i.t.c.h-I still caught a few pellets. It sucked.

Pires were screaming now, running this way and that way, and I crawled through the chaos and snuck past Vlad right into Crazy Knife Goon.

Which proved my theory that G.o.d did, indeed, want me dead.

The blade came down in a long, sweeping arc. I tried to twist to the side, and it shaved a bacon-sized piece of skin off my biceps.

He raised the knife again, I wondered what h.e.l.l would be like and if they gave you time off for sucking up, and then his chest became instant Spaghetti-Os to coincide the another shotgun blast from Vlad.

Crazy Knife Goon folded like a lawn chair, his knife falling from his hand and landing, point-first, between my toes, where it stuck in the floor with a thwak.

Someone grabbed my ankle, but I had enough adrenaline in my system to kill a mastadon, and I pulled free and sprinted down the hall and tried to remember if I should go left or right so I went right and then another right and then I pulled open the door and there was Vlad with the shotgun.

Apparently this house only had one G.o.dd.a.m.n room in it.