13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1) Page 33

They had to stop for gas outside of Lancaster. When the jumping, swaying truck finally came to a stop the ensuing quiet and calm shocked Caxton right out of her own head. She climbed out of the Granola Roller to stretch her legs and then leaned against the side of the vehicle with Captain Suzie while DeForrest pumped the gas. He had to unbolt a layer of armor from the truck's side to get at the gas tank. Inside the gas station the attendant watched them with dull eyes as if he saw state troopers in full combat gear every morning. Eventually Caxton realized he was asleep, sleeping sitting up in his chair. They were probably the first customers of his shift. DeForrest froze, suddenly, even as Caxton was thinking about waking up the attendant to get some snacks. The ART guy let go of the nozzle and stepped away from the pump. He looked at Captain Suzie and without a word pointed up at a line of trees across the highway. "Over there," he said.

"Can you confirm his sighting, Caxton?" Captain Suzie asked.

Fear stuck icy knitting needles into her heart. "Confirm... what?" she asked. She scanned the dead trees for the broken faces of half-deads, the shocking white skin of vampires, even just for movement of any kind. Then she noticed flecks of darkness, like pieces of shadow, swooping and darting among the trees.

A smile lifted her face a little and she turned around, shaking her head. The ART

behind her had dropped to shooting crouches, their weapons up and at their shoulders. They were deadly serious. They were terrified, and they were all looking at her.

"Those are just bats," she said. "They're nocturnal, and the sun's coming up. They're flying home." She shrugged her shoulders. "Bats."

Captain Suzie frowned and put her weapon up but she didn't move from her defensive crouch. "So there's no danger?"

"No," Caxton said. "There's no connection. That's just a myth." She realized with a start that the ART didn't resent her presence. As they climbed back inside the vehicle to resume their journey she understood that they were glad to have her along. She was their trained vampire killer.

She just hoped the mission's success didn't depend on her expertise. They pulled into Kennett Square just as dawn made the white lines on the road glow and seem to float above the dark asphalt. Maybe it was just Caxton's lack of sleep. With the sun creeping up over the trees they moved through the quaint little town which the map showed as being quite literally square.

"What's that smell?" Reynolds asked. Caxton had noticed it too, a thick, earthy smell that occasionally sharpened into something pretty nasty.

"This is the mushroom capital of the world," Captain Suzie told him. "Didn't you know that? That smell is the stuff they grow mushrooms in."

DeForrest sniffed the air. "Shit?" he asked.

Captain Suzie shrugged. "Manure, anyway. They have to cook it in these long sheds, night and day, to sterilize it. This whole part of the state smells like that, pretty much all the time. I used to live around here. You get used to it."

"You get used to the smell of cooking shit," Reynolds said as if he were trying on the idea for size.

"So you hardly even notice it anymore," Captain Suzie assured him. "After a couple of days you can get used to anything."

What about torture, Caxton wondered? Could you get used to torturing your enemies for information? She was afraid she knew the answer.

They passed over a set of train tracks that made the Granola Roller rumble ominously and then they were there-the substation. The hideout of Efrain Reyes, if they were lucky. Or maybe if they weren't.

Caxton checked her weapons, working the actions, chambering and unchambering rounds. The ART followed her example. Arkeley pulled up outside the substation's fence and got out of his car. "What is he doing?" Captain Suzie asked.

The Fed answered for himself, slipping a hands-free phone attachment over his ear. He touched the tiny mouthpiece bud and the armored vehicle's radio squawked. DeForrest punched some buttons. "Say again, over," he announced.

"I was saying that I'm going from here on foot," Arkeley told them. "You can follow however you choose but this place was never meant for a military parade."

"He's making fun of your truck," Caxton told Captain Suzie.

The other woman scowled. "He can make fun of my big nose, but I'm still not getting out and walking," she said, but she wasn't smiling.

The substation took up about two acres of ground, all of it surrounded by brick wall or chainlink fence. The ART had secured the plans of the place. It had been decommissioned by the local utility provider a year earlier (a bigger, better, and safer substation having already been built and hooked into the grid) and work crews were still taking it apart. There was more to it than simple demolition-there were all kinds of nasty chemicals and compounds inside the giant transformers that made up the bulk of the substation's equipment, from sulfur hexafluoride gas to liquid PCBs. The transformers had to be taken apart piece by piece by trained professionals. Electrical engineers, to be specific-men like Efrain Reyes before he died. Arkeley had gotten permission from the substation's owners to search the place. They'd given him a key to the padlock on the gate. There had been some concern that Reyes might have changed the lock but the key worked just fine. Arkeley pushed open the heavy gate and went inside.

Reynolds put the Granola Roller into gear and crept forward, staying twenty-five feet behind Arkeley at all times. The Fed moved forward briskly as if he knew what he was looking for. They passed down a narrow aisle flanked by two rows of tall switches adorned with stacks of round insulators that made them look like the spires of futuristic churches. Beyond lay the transformers themselves, thick, sturdy metal blocks standing in perfect rows.

"I though we were after vampires, not Frankenstein's monster," DeForrest joked. Everyone ignored him. "What's all this stuff for?"

"It steps down the voltage of electricity coming from the power plants," Caxton explained, "until it's safe to send to your house." She pressed her face against the gunport in her window and tried to see what Arkeley must be seeing. Nothing stirred in the substation except a few fallen yellow leaves that skittered around in the breeze, chasing each other back and forth.

Up ahead at the end of the row stood an old switch house, maybe a hundred years old. It was where the original circuit breakers for the substation would have been housed-maybe even fuses, if the place was old enough. It was a one-story building made of dark brown brick with mullioned windows that didn't let much light in or out.

It had to be the place. Beyond lay the chainlink fence. Yellow corn stalks stood eight feet high outside the fence, fields of the dead vegetation running off in every other direction. If Reyes was hiding inside the substation he was in the switch house. Arkeley went to the door and pushed it open. Whatever might have been inside the sun hadn't touched it yet. He unholstered his weapon and took a flashlight from the pocket of his overcoat. "I'm going in, if anyone cares to join me," Arkeley said over the radio.

"That's not how we planned this," Captain Suzie said into her own radio. "That's not what the Commissioner wanted. It could be dangerous."

"The sun's up. We're safe. Right? We're safe," Reynolds said. "The sun's up. Vampires can't come out at day."

"That's right," Caxton told him.

"I don't care. We stay in the vehicle," Captain Suzie said. She stared forward at Arkeley as if she could meet his gaze from the back seat of the armored vehicle. The Fed stepped into the darkness. None of the ART moved.

"Deputy," Captain Suzie called. "Deputy? Come in, Deputy. Give me a status report, give me something. Anything."

"Special Deputy," Arkeley's voice corrected her. He remained out of sight. "I don't have a lot a lot to report just now. I've found a large quantity of cobwebs and rusty equipment. Hold on. I just found a trapdoor. It looks like there's a lower level. I'm headed down."

Caxton pushed open her door and jumped down to the ground before she knew she was really going to do it. Captain Suzie grabbed for her but Caxton slipped through her hands. She moved toward the switch house as the radio on her collar started yelling orders at her.

She was almost at the switch house's open door when something moved in the corner of her eye. She turned, her rifle in firing position, and saw it again. Outside of the fence something was definitely moving around. She looked left and right and saw that someone had cut a hole through the fence, big enough for a grown man to duck through. She ran over and twined her fingers through the chainlink. "Arkeley," she called, "I've found a back exit to the substation. There's somebody out there."

"Caxton," he said. "Get back in that fucking truck. I've told you already-"

She stopped listening to him. Something was definitely moving, creeping through the corn field. It wasn't an animal, either. It was a person, or maybe even several persons or... or several half-deads. She ducked under the fence and immediately heard rustling, a layered slithering sound as numerous bodies pushed through the dead stalks. She spun around, one eye down near the scope of her rifle, and then she saw them, six or maybe seven half-deads wearing hooded sweatshirts. They were dragging something through the corn, something big made of dark wood with brass hardware.

It was a coffin.