“Do you think I didn’t know all that? I used to work for that asshole. I know how he operates, and I’m telling you, we took all the necessary precautions to—”
“Shut up,” Caxton said. “Look—there.”
Down in the Hollow, Glynnis was ready to attack.
The tattoos on her exposed skin writhed and seethed with light. She was no more than a dozen paces from the ring of cops when she stopped walking. She lifted both arms to the sky, then brought her hands down again in one flowing motion. She stopped with her arms held parallel to the ground, her hands turned up so her palms faced the police cars.
Nothing visible passed between her and the raiders. Yet Caxton felt the energy being released from Glynnis’s hands. It made her teeth ache. The air seemed to curdle in front of Glynnis and then cops started screaming.
One after another they dropped their weapons—or threw them away from themselves as if they’d suddenly realized they were holding poisonous snakes. Some of the cops wrestled with their own ballistic vests, desperately trying to unbuckle them as if the vests were on fire. One cop who had been leaning against the side of a car screamed as if the vehicle had grown white hot and burned him everywhere he made contact with it.
“This is my home,” Glynnis said in a clear, steady voice. She wasn’t shouting, but Caxton felt like she could be heard for miles. “You will not come here uninvited. You will not take us away from here. You will do nothing in this place without my permission.”
Caxton could see some of the cops nodding, as if they agreed with everything she said. As if they had suddenly realized she was in charge here, not them, and they’d better do what she said.
“Damn,” Caxton admitted, “she’s good. I don’t think Urie Polder could do this better.”
“What are you going to do about this?” Clara demanded. “Are you going to let her get herself killed?”
Caxton gave it a moment’s thought. She had toughened herself these last two years. Squeezed what little humanity she had left, choked it until it succumbed. She had known there would be casualties when the time came. “She knows what she’s doing.”
Fetlock’s bullhorn wailed again, which seemed to shock the cops out of their hypnotic daze. “This is your last warning! Stand down or you will be shot!”
Glynnis didn’t seem to hear him at all. She didn’t flinch, didn’t shift so much as an inch from where she stood. The tattoos on her back and arms blazed with light. One of the police cars pinged and rocked back and forth on its tires as steam burst from its radiator. The cops nearby rushed to get away from it as if they expected it to explode.
“Stop her,” Clara said.
Caxton shook her head. “I don’t think I could. You want to run down there and grab her arm? You’d probably lose all the skin off your hand.”
“You have to do something!” Clara begged.
“Fire at will,” Fetlock said.
The cops in the windbreakers were too busy panicking to respond. The SWAT teams, however, didn’t seem to have been fazed at all by the supernatural attack. They formed up in neat rows, down on one knee in perfect firing postures. One of them opened up with his weapon, and then two more.
The bullets whizzed all around Glynnis. Caxton knew what the men in the SWAT teams were capable of—she knew how much they trained for things like this. There was no way that all of them were missing her. At least some of the bullets had to be striking Glynnis. But she didn’t take a step back. She didn’t move a muscle.
“Jesus,” Caxton said, in an admiring tone.
“Enough!” Clara shouted, and ran past Caxton. Clara hurtled down the last hundred yards of the ridge and right up to the edge of the clearing. Caxton’s heart jumped in her chest, despite herself. The little idiot was going to get herself shot. She felt a desperate urge to run after Clara, a palpable need to protect the woman who had once been her lover—
But. But, no. No, she couldn’t afford to be captured now. She couldn’t let Fetlock take her, not when Malvern was so close. She closed the distance between them, but made sure she stayed well back in the cover of the trees.
“Glynnis!” Clara shouted. “Glynnis, just surrender! Drop to the ground with your hands above your head!”
Glynnis must not have been expecting that, because she turned her face a fraction of an inch to the side before she caught herself. Before she remembered she couldn’t afford to be distracted.
It was just enough to shatter her concentration. And with that, the enchantment that protected her failed.
Bullets tore through her chest and neck. Blood slicked down her front, obscuring her tattoos. For a split second longer she stayed upright, her palms still stretched out toward the cops. But it couldn’t last. Before Clara even started to scream, Glynnis fell in a heap in the dust, stone cold dead.
34.
Clara couldn’t help herself. She screamed like a little girl.
She had just killed Glynnis. She wanted to drop to her knees and sob, let out all the guilt and horror she felt.
Unfortunately time failed, just then, to stand still. One SWAT team rushed forward, weapons up at their shoulders, ready to shoot anyone who moved. The cops in the blue windbreakers moved to cover them from behind the cars.
It was clear to Clara that at any moment a real firefight would break out—a free-for-all, in which many people would be shot and killed. Over behind the trailers the menfolk of the Hollow readied their guns. The women had almost finished their elaborate hex sign, though there was no suggestion yet of what its purpose might be. Up on top of the trailer the other woman, the hippie woman, remained in perfect repose, hands on her knees with her fingers poised in some complicated gesture.
Clara had to do something. She had to stop this. She still couldn’t move.
She choked down her scream and looked at Laura. It was like she’d never seen the other woman before. Laura’s face bore no emotion whatsoever. Just cold, unfeeling calculation. She was working out the odds in her head, trying to figure out who would come out on top in the storm of lead that was about to erupt.
“Stop them,” Clara said. She didn’t plead. Begging wasn’t going to help here. She merely uttered the words as an instruction.
“I can’t let Fetlock take me right now,” Laura said. It sounded almost like an apology, but only a mere sop. A quick explanation offered to someone too stupid to understand what was really happening.
With a steady, practiced motion, Laura worked a round into the chamber of her Glock handgun. She was ready to fight her way through this.
That made Clara angry. And that was what finally broke her paralysis. “There are kids here! Where are they right now? In those houses over there? Ducking under their kitchen tables, waiting to find out if their parents are going to live through the next few minutes?”
“They’re safe. That hex sign the women are drawing will protect them. It’ll keep stray rounds from traveling too far,” Laura explained.
“It won’t keep their fathers alive.”
Laura had no response to that. What could she possibly have said?
Clara had no weapon of her own. She couldn’t just shoot Laura. She wondered, briefly, if she could have done so, given the opportunity. She reached out to grab Laura’s arm, but the other woman shrugged her off.
“You shouldn’t be seeing this,” Laura said. “You shouldn’t be here. If I had to go out in a blaze of glory, I wanted to do it alone.”
“Glory? You call this glory? Glynnis is dead, Laura. Dead! You were the one who wanted to protect people! That was why you started fighting vampires. Remember? And now a woman is dead, for no reason at all. It wasn’t a half-dead that killed her. It wasn’t Justinia fucking Malvern. It was a SWAT trooper sent to bring you to justice.”
“You think that’s going to stop me?” Laura shook her head. “This isn’t about protecting people, not anymore.”
“It’s—it’s not?”
“No. It’s about killing the vampires. If you need a
better reason, then you’ve already failed. The vampires are evil. They have to be killed. That’s it. And whatever it takes to kill the vampires, you do it.”
Clara stared at Laura in horror. “I can’t let you do this,” she said. Then she opened her mouth to scream, to shout for Fetlock and tell him where Caxton was. It would mean attracting the SWAT teams, and probably getting shot in the crossfire herself. But it would save the rest of the people of the Hollow, and maybe that was worth it.
Before she could make a sound, though, Laura—Caxton—had her gun up and pointed right at Clara’s face. “Give away my position and I will shoot you,” Caxton said.
And it destroyed Clara—utterly ruined her—to think that Caxton meant it.
“I’m … sorry,” Caxton said.
Clara didn’t believe it at all. Slowly she raised her hands. She knew better than to make the slightest sound.
Up on top of her trailer, the hippie woman lifted her hands a few inches above the level of her knees. A sudden breeze rippled through her hair. The SWAT teams, who were only a few dozen feet from the trailers, suddenly looked like they were fighting their way through a hurricane. The many straps on their uniforms snapped and shook. They had to lean forward into every step, and as Clara watched, one of them had to turn his face away as if he wasn’t strong enough to push on any farther.
“New target,” Fetlock called over the bullhorn. Where was he? But Clara knew—he had to be inside the mobile command center. Fetlock wasn’t a field agent. He would never be out on the front lines with a gun in his own hand. He was an administrator. “Seven o’clock high. Fire at will.”
“No, not again,” Clara moaned.
“Keep quiet or I’ll—”
Caxton fell abruptly silent. Clara turned her head slowly to see why.
And hope flooded through her, desperate, half-believing hope. Glauer had come down the trail from the house on the ridge. He must have been making his way down the whole time, moving with glacial slowness so he didn’t make a sound. He had a double-barreled shotgun in his hands and now both barrels were pressed against the back of Caxton’s head.
“You, too, Glauer?” Caxton asked.
Glauer didn’t waste time on apologies. “I know you’re faster than me, and I know you’re deadly. But I’ve got my finger on both triggers right now, and I will unload the second I think you’re trying something,” he told her. “Laura Caxton, you are under arrest.”
[ 1861 ]
Obediah Chess laid her across the bed, across white sheets that looked ivory against her pale skin. Or at least, the skin that he saw when he looked at her.
The blood he gave her, the little drop or two she received every night, was enough to let her practice her orisons. But it was no longer enough to let her lift her head, or even so much as a finger. She could only lie there and receive him, a china doll. Unlike his father, he was a gentle lover. Like his grandfather, he possessed a gift of wild imagination. Sometimes it ran away with him.
Have ye done as I asked? she inquired, speaking directly to his mind. Speech was so difficult these days. The older she grew the more blood she needed even for the simple things, and there was never enough. Have ye spoken with the ladies in town? We must find ye a wife.
“Someone to bear me an heir, you mean,” he said. His brow was dark with trouble and he stared out a window at the black night beyond. “I know your game. I know it and I don’t care. Eventually you’ll kill me and take my son into your bed. I understand. It’s the family curse, by now. By God, it’s my blessing.”
Ye’re … frightened of … something, she said.
He came to her and brushed her hair—hair that existed only in his mind’s eye—with silver brushes. It soothed him to take care of her this way. He really was her favorite of the Chess lineage.
“A wind is coming. A wind to blow away everything my forefathers built,” he told her. “You needn’t trouble yourself with particulars, my darling. But there’s war in the land. A war I fear Virginia will never win. Lincoln will punish us, I have no doubt. We could lose everything. When I was in town they said the Union bastards were closing in. They’ve been hunting up and down the country, teasing out our boys wherever they’re hiding. It’s only a matter of time before they start seizing the plantations, all of our treasure, our land.”
Soldiers? Coming here? Ye must protect me.
“And so I shall. Have no fear.” He took up her hand and pressed it to his lips. His own fingers were covered in tiny scars where she’d supped from his strength every night. She could feel how rough they were. “I will defend you with my last breath. Or perhaps …”
Ye’ve been thinking on this. Ye have some plan in mind.
“Not so much a plan as a wild surmise. A crazy notion that sounds foolish when I speak it aloud. No, it would never do, I—”
If ye can’t speak it aloud, only whisper it in my ear.
“Yes—yes, perhaps—perhaps then it won’t sound so lunatic. Yes … listen, my love …”
She still had the strength to smile when she heard what he had to say.
35.
“You’re making a mistake,” Caxton said. She didn’t move, didn’t even turn her head to look at Glauer. “You know that, right? With me in custody, Malvern won’t be afraid anymore. She’s definitely not afraid of you.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Glauer said.
Caxton sighed. She knew he was telling the truth. He always did. And she understood exactly why he was doing this. Because it was the right thing to do. The way he saw it. She had appreciated this virtue in him once. She had made him her second in command, back when she had run the special subjects unit of the state police. Back when the world still wanted her to fight vampires.
“Do you have a cell phone, Caxton?” he asked. The pressure of the shotgun barrels on the back of her head never wavered.
“Why the hell would I do something stupid like that? They can track cell phones, you know. Fetlock tracks yours all the time.”
“I’m aware of that. Which is why I left mine at home this morning. I’m starting to regret that. We need to get through to Fetlock, right now, and stop this.”
“Laura, just—just be cool, okay?” Clara wavered into Caxton’s field of view. Caxton had trusted Clara once, too. Amazing how everything you believed in could turn into a liability so fast. But she should have guessed. Jameson Arkeley had tried to teach her that lesson. Then he’d become an undead example of it in action.
The moment she’d seen Clara in the house, she should have run for the woods. Abort everything and start over fresh somewhere else. She’d done it before. But she’d spent so long building the perfect trap. That had been a mistake as well. Ever thinking she could rest, that she was getting to a point where she was safe. She should have known. As long as there was one vampire left, there was no such thing as safety.
“I guess we’ll have to do this the weird way,” Glauer said. “Mr. Polder?”
Caxton turned to look at the hexenmeister. Urie Polder looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded, as if he’d worked it out. “I guess there’s no point in more killin’, not now.”
“We can’t give up,” Caxton insisted. “You can’t let them take me!”
“Miss Laura, you be peaceful, now,” Polder said. “I am sorry. But there’s a lotta people down here that might get hurt. Folks with families.”
No. Not Urie, too. Urie had just as much reason to hate vampires as Caxton did. She couldn’t believe he would turn on her like this.
“I’ll take care of things, ahum.” He lifted his twig fingers to his face and closed his eyes. For a moment she heard whispers in her head, whispering voices that weren’t meant for her, so she couldn’t understand what they said. Out in the clearing, nothing much changed—but she could see the message had been received. The men of the Hollow lowered their weapons. Up on top of the trailers, Heather let go of the psychic wind she’d summoned.
The SWAT teams had nearly been knocked f
lat by that wind. Now they rose shakily to their feet, looking ready for whatever came next.
Heather shifted from her lotus position and lowered her hands. “Marshal Fetlock!” she called. “We would like to surrender now. We have Caxton and are prepared to hand her over.”
There was a trace of disappointment in Heather’s voice, but not enough to appease Caxton.
“Every last one of you. No backbone at all,” she muttered. “Did you forget already? Did you forget what a vampire can do?”
“No,” Glauer told her. “I’ll never forget. I saw it at Gettysburg. I saw what happened to Jameson Arkeley. And now I’ve seen what they did to you.” The shotgun barrels pressed a little harder against the back of her head. “Slowly draw your weapons—all of them—and drop them on the ground. Clara, you gather them up.”
Caxton did as she was told. She knew Glauer had already located all her weapons—it was a skill they called visual frisking, when you studied somebody’s clothes to see all the unnatural lumps and bulges that were concealed weapons. He was pretty good at it, since she’d trained him herself. She put the safety on her Glock, then dropped it carefully in front of her. From the back of her waistband she drew her other pistol, a Beretta, and did the same. Then the knife in her left sock, and the pepper spray in her pocket. “That’s everything.”
“Good,” Glauer said, while Clara took her weapons away. That felt like the most serious betrayal of all, for some reason. Like if she’d been a lion and they had pulled out all her teeth and claws. “Everybody hold tight until we’re ready.”
“Got it,” Clara said.
Out in the clearing the SWAT teams stayed ready, in case this was a trap. Fetlock got on his bullhorn again and called out, “All units stay on mission. Shoot anything that looks suspicious. Bring Caxton out slowly, where I can see her.”
32 Fangs: Laura Caxton Vampire Series: Book 5 Page 18
