13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1) Page 51

Scapegrace lead her out of the woods and back to the parking lot of the elementary school. She scanned the surrounding area with her eyes, desperately hoping someone would see them and call the police. No luck, though. She and Deanna had picked the place because it was out in the middle of the woods. Plenty of space for the shed and the kennels. Nobody around to complain about the sometimes bizarre noises greyhounds made. At night there was nobody around at all. Their nearest neighbors were a quarter mile away.

A car, a late model white sedan, sat waiting for them in the lot, its engine idling, its lights on. Doctor Hazlitt sat in the driver's seat, looking nervous.

"She promised Hazlitt could be one of us," Scapegrace told her. He was standing behind her so close she could feel his cold breath on her neck. "She promised him lots of things." The vampire held open the passenger door for her. She could hardly open it herself while she held the baby's cursed skull in her hands. She climbed in and realized she couldn't fasten her seatbelt, either. She guessed that didn't matter.

"Hello, Officer," Hazlitt said. She didn't look at him. He sighed and tried again. "I know you have no reason to like me just now," he went on. "In a few hours, though, we will be allies. That's how this is going to work out. Can't we be civil to one another now?" When she didn't answer he started up the car and turned onto the highway headed southeast. Toward the tuberculosis sanatorium where Justinia Malvern waited so patiently.

They were going to make her kill herself. She'd understood that before but she hadn't considered how it might happen. Reyes had wanted it to be her own choice, and he had nearly succeeded in talking her into shooting herself. He'd wasted time trying to convince her-and before he could finish with her the sun had come up. Scapegrace wasn't going to make the same mistake. He would force her hand. Judging by the methods of persuasion he'd used so far she imagined he would torture her until she begged for death. Then he would give her the means to do herself in.

Arkeley couldn't stop them this time. Arkeley was dead. Tonight I'm going to die, she thought, and then tomorrow night I will rise as a vampire. She wanted to fight them. She wanted it so badly-her body was wracked with the urge to attack, the need to kill the vampire and the doctor. Little whitecaps of adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, beckoning her on. But how? She had no weapons. She didn't know any martial arts.

On the verge of panic she started breathing fast and shallow. Hyperventilating. She knew it was happening but she didn't know how to make it stop. Hazlitt glanced over at her, concern wrinkling his face.

In the back seat Scapegrace seemed bigger than he actually was. He was like some enormous growth, white and flabby like a cancer, filling half the car. "She's just afraid. Her pulse is elevated. She might pass out."

"Yes, thank you," Hazlitt shot back, "I know the symptoms of an anxiety attack. Do you think we should sedate her? She could hurt herself or someone else."

"She might hurt you," Scapegrace said, laughing a little. "Don't worry. I'll grab her if she has a seizure or something."

Tiny sparks of light flashed inside Caxton's eyes. They swam across her vision and were gone as quickly as they'd come. Her throat felt dry and thick and very cold with the air howling in and out of her body. She could hear her own heart beat and she could feel it pulling in her chest. Then bars of darkness appeared at the top and bottom of her vision like when they played old movies on television. The bars thickened and she heard a high pitched whining that filled up her head with its tone and then everything went all soft and fuzzy and out of focus.

She could hear Hazlitt and Scapegrace talking but only as if they were shouting through thick layers of wool. They were drowned out by the ringing in her ears. She could feel her body around her but it was completely numb, rubbery and dead. She could move if she really wanted to but just then she didn't really want to. The fear was gone altogether.

That was the best part. She knew things were still bad and that they wouldn't end well, but her fear was gone and she could think clearly again. She didn't want to sit up-that might break the spell-but she looked forward, through the windshield, and tried to see where they were going. There was something out there but it wasn't the highway. It was pale and big and it had long triangular ears. It was a vampire, maybe Malvern. The vampire raised its hands to her and they were full of red blood. It was offering that redness to her, like a gift.

Scapegrace slapped her across the back of the head and her eyes whirled around in her head and she was back, the ringing gone from her ears.

"I said, are you okay?" Hazlitt yelled. He had one hand on her neck, maybe feeling for her pulse.

She wanted to bat him away but then she looked down and saw she was still holding the baby skull. Whatever had happened she'd managed not to let it fall out of her hands. She remembered she wasn't allowed to let go of it. She pulled away from Hazlitt as best she could with her shoulders. "I'm fine," she managed to say. Her voice sounded weaker than she felt. "What happened?"

"You swooned," the doctor told her, his voice thick with gloating. She scowled. She wasn't the kind of woman who swooned. She thought about it, though. Once, when she and Ashley (Deanna's predecessor) had been in Hershey on vacation, she had drunk chocolate martinis until she had literally passed out. She had woken up on the floor of the ladies' room with a crowd of scared-looking cocktail waitresses looking down at her. It had felt a lot like what had just happened-but even that hadn't made her feel so much shame.

Wow, she thought. If Arkeley could have seen her just then he would have had concrete proof of all the horrible things he'd ever said about her. Thank God he wasn't in the car. Because he was dead.

She worked her face muscles, stretching out her jaw, puffing out her cheeks, trying to revive herself. By the time they reached the hospital she felt pretty much recovered. Hazlitt drove up onto the main lawn next to the statue of Hygiene and they piled out of the car, Caxton very careful not to drop the skull even though her palms were clammy with sweat.

Twelve or thirteen other cars were already parked haphazardly on the grass. They were all empty. A bonfire burned close to the front doors of the hospital. Caxton was pretty sure that the Corrections Officers who ran the place weren't just having a weenie roast. She was right. As they walked up toward the entrance she saw the COs lined up on the ground near the fire, their hands tied behind their backs, their faces down in the grass.

She thought they must be dead. It was almost a relief to think that. When one of them moved her body sagged with brand new horror.

Tucker, the guard who had helped Arkeley find out Reyes' personal information, strained his neck trying to look up and see who had arrived. Caxton did everything she could to look away, to not be seen, but it didn't work. His eyes met hers for a moment and it was like they had a little conversation, it was like they had some of the magic of the vampires and they could communicate with just the firelight that shook in their eyes.

I'm so sorry, she tried to say with her eyes. But there's nothing I can do. His eyes were easy to read, even from twenty feet away. Help me, they said. Please. Please help me.

That was her job, of course. Helping people. At the moment she was indisposed, however. Tucker was going to die because she hadn't been strong enough. Just like everybody else. There was blood on her hands-the metaphorical kind, anyway.

"That guy means something to you?" Scapegrace asked. He didn't give her a chance to deny it. He stormed over to where Tucker lay on the grass and scooped up the big CO in one arm. Tucker outweighed the vampire by probably a hundred pounds but it didn't seem to matter. Scapegrace fastened his big toothy mouth around Tucker's neck and bit down, almost gently. Like he was biting into an apple and didn't want to spurt any of the juice. Then he began to suck. Caxton had no recourse but to scream for him to stop. She might as well have yelled at an avalanche-if anything she just spurred him on. The CO's face went grey, then white. It never got as white as the vampire's skin. His eyes rolled around in his head and his body quivered but he never screamed. Maybe Scapegrace had crushed his larynx. When it was over the vampire just threw the body down on the ground. It was useless. Blood ringed his mouth, bright red blood. "They're all going to die," he told her. Some of the other COs whimpered. One began praying in a sobbing, warbling voice.

Scapegrace took him next.

After the third or fourth victim had been drained Hazlitt cleared his throat. "Leave the rest for now," he said. "Justinia wants to talk to our guest."

Scapegrace jumped up and ran his forearm across his wet mouth. He moved across the grass so quickly he left trails in the air. Without seeming to move at all he had his hands around Hazlitt's neck. He forced the doctor down to the ground until he was kneeling on the wet grass, looking up into the vampire's eyes with sheer terror bringing waxy sweat onto his forehead.

"You're not one of us yet," Scapegrace said. "You think you can remember that?"

The doctor nodded emphatically. The vampire let him up and then they all went inside.