The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

Hisako did a back flip and her arched foot thudded into his neck. His gun went off but missed Hisako. Other guards came running. They were no match for their daintily lethal opponent.

Janet arrived on the scene in time to see one of the 18-stone bodyguards tossed over the balustrade. If the trained American guards with their guns weren't getting anywhere she was hardly likely to make a difference with her telescopic night-stick.

Janet hastily hid behind the thick wooden door leading to the entrance hall. She saw Hisako break away and run towards where she was hiding. The policewoman threw her weight at the heavy door. There was a satisfying crash as Hisako, taken completely off guard, ran into the swinging portal. The force propelled her across the room.

Janet didn't hang about. The dazed Japanese woman was already recovering, almost on her feet. Janet snatched up a bronze statuette of John Wayne and dived forward. The heavy ornament smashed into the side of Hisako's head with the full weight of the policewoman and the impetus of her dive behind it. The thud as it crunched into Hisako's bald head echoed around the room.

Exhausted by the effort, Janet slumped to the floor and stared at the hideous wound she had opened in Hisako's naked skull.

She let the guards take care of the unconscious woman and eventually went looking for Brasher. She found him crouched over the senator. He looked up.

"Get an ambulance," he told her. "The senator's been shot."

Hisako was proving to be a medical miracle. The wound in her head was healing at a phenomenal rate. It was only four hours since Janet had laid her out, but already the gash had closed and left only a jagged red scar to mark its passing.

The senator hadn't fared so well. He had begun to develop the symptoms that were becoming so well known to Brasher and Janet.

The doctors had no answers to their questions. The best they could come up with was that Hisako's body was basically different; it had become more efficient and, they reluctantly added, improved. The interesting thing about her immune system seemed to be that it was externalized through her lymph glands. This explained the deaths of those unfortunate enough to come into physical contact with her.

Shortly before midnight the senator died an agonizing death, virtually rotting alive. The doctors were having a field day. Already they were calling the disease, which totally destroyed the victim's immune system, the Hisako Syndrome, and vying for the honour of giving it a Latin label. Hisako was locked up in an isolation cell until a secure and germ-free environment could be made available to her at the hospital.

Janet finished reading through her report on the incidents of the day. She felt a certain sympathy towards the captured woman. It must have been terrible for her. All her life she had been kept in an airtight bubble. Treated like a guinea pig. Somehow she had been touched by another human being. Only to see him or her die, rot and shrivel before her eyes. Janet could imagine the rage that welled inside her.

Her records showed that she was way above average intelligence. She spoke several languages and had a score of PhDs. Her intelligence and isolation had fed her mind, but she had no idea about the simple things of life. And it was all down to the bomb the Americans had dropped on her home town.

Somehow Senator Manhelm had become responsible for all her problems and she had set out to destroy him. The rowing club and the others had just been unfortunate to get in her way.

Janet locked the report in her drawer and was preparing to leave when the telephone rang. Hisako had become ill and was asking to see her. Janet hesitated. Although sympathetic, she didn't want to get too close to the captured woman. Then she shrugged. What harm could it do?

When Janet entered the cell she gagged on the smell of putrefaction which even penetrated the surgical mask she was wearing. Hisako was strapped in a strait-jacket, lying on her side facing the wall. Her bald head was already mottled and had developed nauseating, pus-dribbling boils. Hisako rolled over so that she was facing Janet. The policewoman was shocked at the change to the delicate features of the beautiful woman. Hisako's face had blown up into a scarlet pumpkin. Her eyes, which had been so fine and clear a few hours earlier, were now milky cataracts that flickered feverishly. Her perfect mouth a deformed crater of festering ulcers. Slowly Hisako pushed herself to her feet. Effortlessly, she flexed her muscles and the strait-jacket ripped and fell in a heap on the floor.

Janet wanted to call out, alert the guard to what was happening, but she couldn't move.

Hisako limped painfully towards the mesmerized policewoman and reached out her nightmarish hands.