13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1) Page 23

She couldn't sleep in the car. Clara's car was a rebuilt police Crown Victoria like almost every other police car in the world. It was a lot like Caxton's own patrol car. It was designed to provide a cop with all the information she needed to do her job-the dashboard was studded with instrumentation: the readout for a radar gun, the ubiquitous mounted laptop for checking license plates, the video recorder that monitored everything that happened both inside the car and from the perspective of its front bumper. The various radios squawked and muttered at random intervals. The seat couldn't recline because of the bulletproof partition immediately behind Caxton's head to protect the driver and front-seat passenger from anyone in the rear compartment. The car was a workplace, not a bedroom. After trying to relax for fifteen minutes she grabbed handfuls of her hair and pulled, too frustrated to even speak.

Clara glanced over at her. "I know what you need," she said, and took the next exit. She pulled into the lot of a one story building with white Christmas lights strung up under its eaves. A little tavern, bright, cheery light leaking from all its windows, the muffled sound of a jukebox playing some bad country song lingering in the air around it. They went inside and grabbed a couple of bar stools and Clara ordered them Coronas with extra lime. "There's no way you're going to sleep now. You're wound up as tight as a spring."

Caxton knew it was true. She didn't particularly want the beer, though she didn't refuse it. She wasn't much of a drinker-she was a morning person, really, and had never managed to close out a bar in her life. Yet with the cold wet bottle in her hand and the taste of the lime on her lips she realized she'd been missing something for a long time, the easy, friendly good humor that comes from sitting in a bar with friendly people around you. She probably hadn't been in a place like this since she'd met Deanna.

A fifty inch plasma screen sat at the far end of the bar playing a football game. Caxton didn't watch much television, either, and the bright light and constant motion kept drawing her eye. She didn't care whatsoever about football but the bland normalcy of it was kind of nice.

Slowly her shoulders slid down away from her neck. Slowly her posture let up a little and she slumped forward on the bar stool. "This," she said, "is not so bad."

"Hey, look," Clara said, and pointed at the television. The local station had cut away to a news report. It was just ten o'clock. They were leading with video shot out in the woods, with lots of strobing lights and a reporter who kept looking back at the camera with wide eyes and a tightly pursed mouth. Caxton had no idea what was going on until she saw her own face, looking pale and ghostly as it swam up out of darkness to be flooded with video camera lights. "Turn the sound on, will you?"

Clara asked the bartender.

"I don't remember any cameras," Caxton said, realizing that she was looking at the scene of the vampire kill. The aftermath, anyway.

"-still haven't been allowed to see the body, I have to say," the reporter droned,

"there's a real sense of secrecy here as if the Marshals Service is covering something up. We have no information on the alleged vampire yet, even twenty-four hours later. Authorities haven't even released his name."

Twenty-four hours? Had it really been only one day? Caxton put a hand over her mouth. On the television screen her emotionless face kept turning away from the light. She had a vague memory of being annoyed by a light, but she hadn't realized at all that the media were there while she was being debriefed. The fight with the vampire had shocked her so much she must have been in a daze.

"A source in the Pennsylvania State Police gave us an interview this afternoon under condition that we didn't reveal his identity. He says the alleged vampire was not given any kind of warning or any chance to surrender to authorities. Diane, there's sure to be a lot more to this story in the coming days."

"Thanks, Arturo," the anchorwoman said. She looked calm and unfazed. "Stay tuned for lots more coverage of-"

"That what you wanted to hear?" the bartender asked. When Clara nodded he muted the sound again and switched over to a reality show about lingerie models working in a butcher's shop.

"Wow, you're going to be a celebrity, you know that?" Clara asked. "Every news station in the country is going to want an interview."

"Assuming I survive the next few days," Caxton said, under her breath.

"What?" Clara asked. When Caxton didn't reiterate she shook her head. "Wow. So what was the vampire like?"

"Pale. Big. Toothy," the trooper answered.

"I was so obsessed with vampires when I was in high school. My friends and I would put on capes and fake fangs and make little movies of us hypnotizing each other with our best sexy looks. Man, I looked pretty good as a vampire."

"I doubt it," Caxton said. Clara's eyebrows went up in what could have turned into real offense. "Don't get me wrong. I bet you looked great. But not if you looked like a vampire. They're bald as cue balls, for one thing. And those pointy little fangs?

Believe me, you don't want to see the reality."

Clara slapped the bar. "Vampires are, too, sexy," she announced, her tone jaunty.

"Stop trying to ruin my schoolgirl fantasy! I don't mind if they're bald. I say, as long as we're here in this bar, everything about vampires is sexy. Very, very sexy."

Caxton smiled in spite of herself. "Oh yeah?" she asked.

"Hells yeah!" She reached over and grabbed Caxton by the bicep. "And big tough vampire hunters are even sexier!" They both laughed. That felt good, that comfortable, friendly laugh. "Don't you think she's sexy?" she demanded from the bartender. Her hand lingered on Caxton's arm. It just sat there, doing nothing objectionable. Clara didn't even look at her, just sucked at her beer bottle, but she didn't take her hand away.

"I'd do her," the bartender said, but he was watching the lingerie models make sausage in a big industrial meat grinder.

"I'll be right back," Caxton said, pulling away as she slid off her stool. Clara's hand moved to the bar. Caxton ran back to the ladies' room, where she threw some water on her face. Wow, she thought. Wow. The hand on her arm hadn't just been warm. It had been hot, physically hot. She knew it was just an illusion, but wow. She hadn't felt like that in a very long time. She missed feeling like that. She missed it a lot.

When she stepped out of the bathroom Clara was standing next to the payphone. She was smiling from ear to ear and her eyes showed nothing. She was trying to play it cool and be super-aggressive at the same time. Caxton remembered that dance, she even remembered pulling off the same moves. When Clara lowered her eyes and stepped to the left, just as Caxton was stepping to the right, she knew exactly how it felt, the little, trembling fears that multiplied the longer you held back, the big hope you shoved down so it wouldn't overwhelm you but it kept busting out. There was even a good song on the jukebox. She couldn't remember the name of the artist or the title but it was a good song.

She missed that feeling, the butterflies in the stomach, the cold prickles on the back of her neck, she missed it so much that as Clara raised her hands she stepped right into them, closed her eyes as they touched her face, those hot little fingers tracing the smooth line of her jaw. Caxton just had time to exhale before Clara's soft lips touched hers, moist, soft, exactly the right temperature. She had missed that most of all, those first, exploring kisses. The very first taste of a woman's lips. Clara's mouth started to move and Caxton raised her own hands, not to touch Clara's face but to gently, ever so gently, break contact.

Clara's eyes were moist, her mouth a pursed question. "Aren't you...?" she asked, a whisper.

"I'm in a relationship," Caxton said. She was sweating under the bandage on her shoulder. "I need to go home. To her."

Clara nodded and stepped to the right, to let Caxton past. Except Caxton chose the same moment to step left. They nearly collided with each other and it was enough to break the tension. They both sighed out a little shared laugh. Caxton covered the bar tab and they climbed back in the sheriff's department car. They said very little on the ride to Caxton's house but a tiny smile played on Clara's lips the whole time. When she stopped the car out front they sat there for a moment listening to the dogs howl in their kennels. "I love dogs," Clara said. "What kind?"

"Rescue greyhounds," Caxton said as if she were admitting to a crime. Clara's eyes lit up. "Maybe some time you'll introduce me to them?"

"Sure-some time, maybe," Caxton said. She was blushing. Only when she popped open the door and felt the cold air on her cheeks did she realize she'd been blushing all the way home. No wonder Clara had kept smiling at her. "Thanks for the ride, anyway," she said. "I'll, uh, see you."

"Don't worry," Clara told her. "I can wait a while to get my cute little fangs in that neck of yours." She was laughing as she drove off.

Caxton fed the dogs-Deanna had forgotten again, even their water bowls were dry-and headed inside. She stripped in the kitchen and then dashed into the bed, burrowing under the covers before she could get cold. Deanna's body under the duvet was sharp and angular but she snaked a hand around her lover's stomach and up to cup one of her breasts. Deanna stirred in her sleep and Caxton started kissing her ear.

"Oh, Pumpkin, not tonight," Deanna hissed. "You smell all bloody."

With wounds on her hand and her shoulder Caxton supposed that was fair enough.

She went and sat in the shower for a long time, playing with the spiral pendant Vesta Polder had given her, watching the steam roll and roil around her until she finally, blessedly, began to nod off.