Glauer frowned under his mustache. “Don’t make this about choice. Not when we don’t actually have one. Fetlock is in charge here. There’s nothing we can do about that. We play his game because it’s the only way. Alright?”
“No, goddamn you, it’s not alright!”
“Trooper Darnell,” Fetlock said, “please escort these two out of the trailer. Put them somewhere they can be seen from both ridges. I don’t think they need to be restrained, but if they give you any trouble, well—use your best judgment.”
The snake-eyed cop favored them with a cold smile, then stepped forward to grab at Clara’s arms.
“Forget it, I’ll go,” she said, lifting her arms so he couldn’t seize her. As she pushed her way out of the trailer, she heard Fetlock talking again to Urie Polder. Probably asking him again if he would help or not.
Outside in the summer sun, she moved quickly away from the trailer, then realized she had no idea where to go next. Her car was back up at the house, on top of the ridge. She could just retrieve it and drive away, drive as fast as she could and get as much room between her and this place as possible before nightfall. Except she doubted that Fetlock would let that happen. She turned to look back at the trailer and saw Glauer standing right behind her. Darnell waited at the door of the trailer, watching them both. Ready to move in if they tried anything. Like escaping.
“We’re prisoners here,” Clara said to Glauer.
“Yep. Now, will you calm down?”
“Fuck that!” she shouted. She leaned around him to look at Darnell. His snake eye was gone, and he looked perfectly normal now. “Fuck you, too, lizard face!”
Darnell didn’t respond.
“You know, you’re doing exactly what Fetlock wants. Right now,” Glauer told her. “You’re making yourself highly visible.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Does it even matter? We both know he’s right. That Malvern will come here, tonight. Whether or not we’re here. Whether or not he weakens the defenses around this place. She’ll come for Caxton.”
“Yep. The rest is just window dressing.”
Clara shoved the balls of her thumbs into her eye sockets and rubbed hard until bright geometric patterns exploded in the back of her vision. She had come here for one simple reason, one—well, maybe it hadn’t been so simple, but—but—she had just wanted to see Laura again. She could not have guessed how cockeyed things would get, and just how fast. Nobody could have guessed that. It was not her fault. None of this was her fault.
Except maybe Glynnis’s death. But—
“Okay!” she shouted. Then, softer, “Okay.”
“Okay what?” Glauer asked.
“Okay, I’m going to calm down. I’m going to start thinking. I’m going to figure out what I need to do in this situation, what the logical thing—or at least the most survivable thing—is, and then I’m going to do it.”
“Good start.”
Clara shook her head. She stared down at the dirt of the clearing and tried to put the pieces together. “Malvern will come, sometime after dark. She’ll have an army of half-deads with her. We’ve seen no sign that she has any other vampires under her command—she hasn’t made any new ones, and the old ones are all dead. So she’s the only real threat. A human being can take down a vampire if they know what they’re doing.”
“It helps if they have a lot of guns.”
“Right. I don’t. I don’t have any weapons at all. But Fetlock does. He’s got plenty of guns. Maybe he can actually do what he says. I mean, he’s got two highly trained SWAT teams here, and plenty of regular cops. He’s got a helicopter. Probably snipers up on the ridges, maybe some special toys to play with. He’s taking the situation seriously, and he’s read all the case files. So maybe, just maybe, he stands a chance.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Glauer said. “I’ve seen what vampires do to cops. Too many times. The cops always thought they were ready.”
“Yeah,” Clara said with a sigh. “I’ve seen it, too.”
“So it’s a bad wager. But in this case, we don’t even have the ante. We don’t get to play. We’re going to have to take our chances and hope Fetlock wins.”
“Yeah.”
Glauer nodded as if he was pleased she’d finally seen reason. Then his eyes started moving. He didn’t turn his head, but he rolled his eyes in the direction of Darnell. When he saw that Clara caught what he was trying to communicate, he nodded again, just once, and then looked to the side, toward where the paddy wagon sat in the middle of the clearing like a birthday present ready to be unwrapped.
“If we lose here, we both die, or worse. Even if we win, we get out of here with nothing but our lives. Maybe not even our freedom, if Fetlock decides to prosecute us. Like he did to Caxton, even after she took down Jameson Arkeley and saved Simon.”
“… Right,” Clara said, following his argument clearly enough but not exactly sure where he was going.
“Well,” Glauer said. “Given all that. What do we do in that situation?”
Clara looked up at him with wide eyes. She knew what he was suggesting—and it wasn’t his usual style. It might change the odds, though. It might. “We cheat,” she said, and watched him slowly nod.
40.
It was stiflingly hot inside the paddy wagon. There was almost no ventilation, and while the vehicle possessed air-conditioning, nobody had thought to turn it on. Sweat slicked Caxton’s skin and made her clothes stick to her. She had to keep rolling back and forth to keep her legs from touching the hot floor, but that expenditure of energy just made her more sweaty and more hot. It was almost pitch black inside as well. She could see nothing, and could hear only the occasional sound from outside as someone went running past, or shouted out some instruction or piece of information. The thick walls of the vehicle kept her from understanding most of what was said. So she had no real idea of what was going on out there, and that was truly annoying. If she was going to make a plan, figure out some way to escape, she desperately needed more data.
It had not occurred to her to just give up. To let Fetlock take her back to prison, there to wait until Justinia Malvern came to kill her—again. She was fully aware that this was her probable fate. But she could still think, she could plan, she could imagine ways to change her current situation.
Eventually someone would have to come to extract her from the paddy wagon. There was a very little slack in the chain that connected her handcuffs to her leg shackles. If she was totally prepared she might be able to twist around and get that slack around a neck or an arm. If she could incapacitate whoever came for her, she would be left unguarded with the door open.
Assuming Fetlock only sent one person to fetch her. Which he wouldn’t. The Bureau of Prisons had done this before, and they knew what the risks were. Two guards in full body armor, with excellent neck protection, would do the actual extraction. Meanwhile a whole squad of guards with shotguns and Tasers would be waiting nearby in case she tried something.
Alright. So maybe she could talk her way out of this. If Fetlock came by again—either to gloat or to interrogate her—she could offer him something he desperately needed. Her expertise. She could promise she would tell him everything she’d ever learned about killing vampires, in exchange for her freedom. Not even for letting her go. Just for allowing her a few more weeks in the Hollow, to consolidate her legacy. To get Simon and Patience ready for their generations-long vigil. To teach them what she knew.
There was only one problem. Fetlock would never go for it. He assumed he already knew everything he needed to about killing vampires. Not that he’d ever done it successfully without her help.
Caxton rocked side to side, trying to keep as much of her exposed skin as possible from contacting the searing metal floor of the paddy wagon. The vigorous motion helped keep her blood flowing as well. If she needed to act in a hurry, she couldn’t afford to let her legs fall asleep.
It also helped her express a little of her anger.
Clara.
Clara, that silly little girl. Clara, who still believed in love and caring for people and the value of human life. Clara, who had never gotten it, never understood at all that as long as even one vampire still lived, nobody was ever safe. That there was nothing more important than taking down Justinia Malvern—and driving vampires to extinction, once and for all.
Clara. Who had looked so good. Who had changed her hair a little, lost her bangs, but whose eyes were—were—
Clara, who was nothing but a distraction. Even in the dark Caxton squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blank out the image in her head. The image of Clara looking betrayed. Looking to betray in return. But this was all Clara’s fault. She just had to come to the Hollow and fuck everything up.
Clara—
Someone banged on the doors of the paddy wagon. Then they opened, and brilliant sunlight burst across Caxton’s face. If her eyes hadn’t already been shut, she would have been blinded. Caxton gasped as fresh air rushed into the confined space and her lungs ate it up like candy.
Slowly she cracked her eyelids to see who had come for her.
It was nobody she recognized. A guy in SWAT armor, holding a plastic water bottle. He had a particularly Pennsylvanian face, she thought. A mix of Eastern European ancestry and pure Appalachian hillbilly. He was grinning at her like she was a twelve-point buck he’d just put in the sights of his hunting rifle.
Standing behind him were six men with guns, and every barrel was trained on her face.
“Are we moving out?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting here for what feels like hours.” There was enough left of her old spirit to want to be obnoxious. “If I’m going to prison, I’d like to get there in time for dinner.”
“Oh, not quite as yet,” he said. His accent sounded just like Urie Polder’s. This did not give her much comfort. “But we figured maybe you’d be taking thirsty by now.” He tossed the bottle at her.
She managed to catch it with her chin before it rolled away. It was warm, but not nearly as warm as the floor of the paddy wagon, and for that she was inordinately grateful. “Thanks,” she said. “You going to remove my chains so I can actually drink it? Or are you going to hold it for me like a baby bottle?”
He laughed. “Don’t thank me. It was your girlfriend convinced Marshal Fetlock you might die of dehydration in there. And we can’t have you dyin’ on us, not yet anyhow.”
Clara had sent the bottle of water? Caxton pushed aside the swell of gratitude that came rushing into her throat.
“You didn’t answer my question. How am I supposed to drink this?”
The SWAT trooper shrugged and laughed again. “You’re s’posed to be a clever one. You figger it out on your own.”
Then he slammed the doors of the paddy wagon in her face and she heard them being locked yet again.
“No!” she shouted, despite herself. “No! Come back! Tell me what’s going on!”
Much as she had expected, this failed to achieve anything.
For a while she just lay there, trying not to think about Clara. Mostly she was successful. Then she turned her attention to the bottle of water.
It was a hopeless endeavor. There was no way she could get it open without spilling the whole bottle across the floor. But it was something to focus on. A project. It would help her keep her mind off of other things.
It took her the better part of an hour, but she wanted to do it right. She had to experiment with all the possible angles and all the ways of grasping the bottle without using her hands, since they were still secured behind her back. She managed to twist herself around and brace herself against the benches in the paddy wagon, then push the water bottle up against the unyielding doors. With her teeth, then, she could try to turn the cap. It would take a lot of torsion to break the plastic seal, she knew—probably more force than she could muster. She was so hot and sweaty and tired and had so little strength left. But still.
It was better to try than to despair and accept being so thirsty.
She got her teeth around the cap and twisted her neck around in an uncomfortable motion. She put everything she had left into it—
—and promptly spilled half the bottle all over herself.
The fucking cap hadn’t been sealed at all. The bottle had already been opened.
Bastard! she thought. The SWAT trooper had probably spit in the bottle before he gave it to her. She sucked greedily at the water as it flowed across her shirt, trying to get as much as possible into her mouth. She didn’t pay much attention to the liberated cap—there was no way she could get it back on the bottle—and let it fall to the floor of the paddy wagon.
Where it landed with a dull metallic clank.
She came very close to losing the rest of the water then. But she managed somehow to drink all that was left before investigating that unusual sound. Then, when she was pretty sure she’d seen what made the noise, she forced herself not to let her hopes carry her away.
But no. It was true.
Wedged inside the plastic cap was a short, stubby cylinder of nickel-plated steel, from one end of which protruded a narrow flange. Caxton recognized it instantly, of course. She’d seen things like it her whole adult life. Had used them more times than she could count.
It was a standard handcuff key.
“Clara,” she breathed, terrified of making too much noise, terrified that at any moment the SWAT trooper would come back and see what she had. “Clara—thank you.”
[ 1928 ]
Electric light—so brilliant, so painful. She’d never seen it before. She raised a hand to cover her face, but they just moved the light around on its stand. Clicking and whirring noises surrounded her. A man stood nearby, dressed in linen, smoking cigarette after cigarette.
Lenses twisted and receded, getting better focus. A man with a clapboard snapped it in her face. “Living vampire found in California!” he called. “Take seven.”
She opened her mouth. Tried to hiss.
“Perfect,” someone said. “Make her bite at the camera. Make her roll her eye around like Max Shreck, that’s perfect! This is good stuff, kid, good stuff.”
“She weren’t like this when I found her, just bones, and maggots, and mucky shit.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Sorry, mister.”
“That’s alright, kid—listen—Movietone wants an exclusive on this, you got it? No radio, no newspapermen down here. How’s five hundred dollars sound?”
“Pretty swell.”
“Thought so. Rudy—get the light closer, it makes her move around more. Damn, she must have been down here a long time to get so strung out. Nathan—Nathan, get me a stick or something, anything. I’m not going to touch her with my goddamned hands, am I? Nah, she’s not dangerous.” The man with the cigarettes leaned over her, filled her vision. She reached for him, but he laughed and danced away. “Couldn’t suck a kitten dry, not anymore. This is great stuff. Great—”
His cigarette fell from his mouth. The light was so bright—it blinded her—she could see nothing. It stabbed at her brains.
“Huh, stronger than she looks. Rudy, help me with—damn it. Let go, you old bitch. Let go or I swear I’ll—”
The screams started then. Raw red sounds on the cool air. The light kept her from thinking. It kept her from understanding what was going on.
The blood hit the back of her throat like the balm of Gilead.
“Rudy! Rudy, you stupid fuck! Rudy—”
She heard feet pounding all around her. Men running. All of them but one. The one who couldn’t get away. The blood, the blood—the blood was in her, new strength, new life. It had been a long time.
She couldn’t stay there when it was done. They would be back. Back with their lights and with guns. She crawled from her coffin. Found herself in a dusty cellar. How had she gotten there? There had been a man who collected dinosaur bones—no, that was Josiah Caryl Chess. Another man, much later—a man who collected—who collected oddities, old relics—she h
ad not been able to make him love her, she’d been too weak for that. Time. Time had gone away, she couldn’t afford to let that happen again—time—
The stairs nearly undid her. She could only move one arm, and that slowly. She managed to climb the stairs. To slither out into the night. She had to find a new place. A new hiding place, before the sun came.
Consciousness fled from her with every new agony. With every inch she crawled. A dusty road. A car swerved to avoid her, its lights an agony. Had to find—had to—
A horn blared, blasting her ears. So little of her left. So long since she’d had—since she’d—
Blood.
She could smell it on the wind.
She turned her head to the side. Saw that the car had gone off the road and ended in a ditch. The car—the car was full of blood. A man and a woman inside. Not dead yet, though they would be soon. She had to—had to get to them first—
The twentieth century was a bad time for Justinia Malvern.
But she survived.
41.
Glauer sucked on his mustache. “I hope we did the right thing,” he said. He’d been uneasy about the scheme the whole time, even if it had been his idea. Clara knew that he could always be counted on to do the right thing—as he saw it—but that he also had a hard time justifying his own actions when they went contrary to the law.
“I just hope we did enough,” she whispered back. The two of them were walking back and forth around the clearing, making themselves visible as Fetlock had requested. Putting themselves on display for any half-deads that might be watching. She felt like she’d painted a bull’s-eye on her back.
Sunset was barely half an hour away. Still the Hollow was buzzing with activity. The witchbillies had all been herded into their homes and then locked in. Guards with carbines were standing at strategic spots around the tiny village, ready to open fire if anyone tried to sneak out of their own front door. Meanwhile the SWAT troopers were digging in, quite literally digging a trench on one side of the Hollow while they established a hunting blind in the trees partway up one ridge. They were building firing positions, just like soldiers building foxholes and pillboxes in advance of an enemy attack. That was exactly what Fetlock was expecting. A frontal assault of half-deads, most likely coming up the main road—though he was prepared if they came over either ridge, too. The half-deads would try to swarm over the cops in the Hollow, and then Justinia Malvern would make her dramatic entrance, draining any survivors of blood before she went for the main prize. The paddy wagon. It stood in the middle of the clearing just waiting to be torn open so Malvern could get at the vampire hunter within.
32 Fangs: Laura Caxton Vampire Series: Book 5 Page 21
