13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

"Something happened here last night, didn't it? Something that could have been bad," sergeant Tucker said, staring across his desk at them. The last time Caxton had seen him he'd had his feet up on the desk and he'd been watching television. Now he was leaning forward, his eyes scanning the hallways that lead off in four directions from his station. "We had twenty-three COs on duty last night but I can't get a straight answer out of everyone. One guy sees shadows moving around like his room was full of candles and they were flickering and shit. Another guy definitely saw a vampire walking across the lawn, pale skin, lots of teeth, bald as an egg, but he had orders not to even tell the asshole to halt."

"That was my order," Arkeley confirmed.

Tucker nodded. "And then at two-fourteen in the AM, the temperature in the hospital wing dropped by seven degrees. I got a recording right here on my computer. It was sixty-two, then it was fifty-five. By half past two it was back up to sixty. I've got video footage of something pale and blurry running across the pool room so fast I can't even get image enhancement to work." Tucker's eyes narrowed.

"If you hadn't been here, if it had just been my men-"

"I was here. The situation was under control the whole time."

Tucker studied Arkeley's face for a long time, then looked away and scratched at his close-cropped hair. "Yeah, alright. What can I do for you now?"

Caxton handed over her PDA and Tucker stared at the pictures on the small screen. "These are the vampires who were here last night," Arkeley explained. "I need to know if they resemble any of the people on my list."

Tucker tapped at his keyboard. "Right, the list of all the people who worked here in the last two years. I can't say I recognize either of them but let's look." He swiveled his monitor around so they could see. The names from the list came up on the screen and he clicked each one to show them a picture.

"This is a pretty sophisticated database," Caxton marveled.

Tucker pursed his lips and clicked through the names, one by one. "It has to be. I don't know what this place looks like to you, but to me, it's a corrections facility. I run it like I would any prison-which means I keep very close tabs on who goes in and out."

"There," Arkeley said, pointing at the screen. "Stop and go back a few."

Tucker did so and soon they were all staring at a picture of one Efrain Zacapa Reyes, an electrician with the Bureau of Prisons who had come through Arabella Furnace the previous year. "I remember this guy, a little. He came in to replace some fluorescents and to set up the blue lights Hazlitt wanted in the hospital wing."

A chill ran down Caxton's spine.

Arkeley frowned. "So he would have been close enough to communicate with her. Close enough for her to pass on the curse."

Caxton started to ask a question but then she remembered something. She wasn't really on the case any more. She could help Arkeley out in whatever capacity he chose for her but her thoughts and opinions were no longer welcome. She felt a weird pang of loss, weird because it was very similar to how she felt when Clara had kissed her. Like she could see something, some whole new and exciting aspect of life, only to know she would never be allowed to explore the implications.

"I'll admit there's a similarity but this ain't your guy," Tucker said, startling her back to attention.

"And why is that?" Arkeley asked.

"Well, he was only on the hospital wing maybe like an hour. All he did was screw in some light bulbs, and I had three COs in there with him while he was doing it. If he tried anything they would have beaten him down on the spot-we do not fuck around at Arabella Furnace. Nobody mentioned anybody swapping blood or spit or anything wet."

Arkeley nodded but he clearly hadn't written off Reyes as a suspect. Caxton stared at the two pictures, the one on her PDA, the one on the screen. There was a distinct resemblance in the forehead and nose between one of the vampires and the electrician. There was one major difference, though.

"He's Latin," Caxton said. The picture on the computer screen showed Reyes as having skin the color of ripe walnut shells. The vampire, of course, was snowy white.

"Others," Arkeley intoned, "have made that mistake many times before. Others who are now dead. When the vampire rises from the grave his skin loses all of its pigment. It doesn't matter if they were Black, Japanese or Eskimo beforehand, they end up white. You saw for yourself," he said to Caxton, "vampires aren't just Caucasian. They're albino. This," he said, tapping the computer screen, "is one of our men."

Tucker wasted no time printing off Reyes' vital statistics. Caxton ran to the printer to gather up the sheets of printout.

"Tell me his LKA," Arkeley said, referring to his Last Known Address. "We flushed them out of the hunting camp-they'll need a new hiding place and most likely they'll turn to a place where they feel comfortable.

She found the datum easily enough but shook her head. "It's an apartment building in Villanova. They won't want that, will they? Too much activity, too much chance of being noticed when they go in and out."

Arkeley nodded. "They prefer ruins and farms."

"Then there's nothing here. Reyes lived in the same building for years, at least since 2001. Listen, let me try a cold call and see if I turn something up."

Maybe-maybe if she could turn up some useful information then Arkeley wouldn't consider her such a failure. She cursed herself for using his opinion to define her self-esteem. What stupider thing could she possibly do? Still. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the emergency contact number, which was also the number of the building manager for the apartment building. When she'd established she was a police officer the manager was more than willing to talk to her. She got what details she could and hung up.

"So?" Arkeley asked.

"Efrain Reyes was a nice guy, kept pretty much to himself, no wife or girlfriend, no family or at least no family that ever visited. The building manager thought maybe he was an illegal immigrant but had no proof of that."

"He would at least need a green card to get in here," Tucker clarified. Caxton nodded. "The man I spoke to liked Reyes a lot, because Reyes fixed a problem with the building's circuit breakers a couple of years ago for no charge. He was informed by the local police that Efrain Reyes died seven months ago in an accident at his workplace. He says he wanted to attend the funeral but was told that because no one claimed the body it had been given a quick burial at the State's expense in the potter's field in Philadelphia. He's holding Reyes' few personal effects in a box-he says there's nothing unusual among them, just some clothes and toiletries. The apartment was furnished and Reyes doesn't seem to have added anything to it."

"He sounds like a ghost, not a vampire," Tucker suggested.

Caxton shrugged. "From what I heard he sounded like a severe depressive. Apparently the only thing he ever complained about was being tired, but the building manager suggested he missed more than a few days of work, especially in the winter. Judging by the mail he got he read a lot of men's magazines- Playboy, FHM, Maxim-but never went on a date or anything more social than a movie."

Arkeley nodded as if was all starting to make sense. "A virtual non-entity that no one really missed when he was gone. Tell me how he died."

"Industrial accident. He touched a live wire or something and died of cardiac arrest before the ambulance could even arrive. That's what the building manager told me." She studied the printout in her hand. "He worked at an electrical substation outside of Kennett Square." She checked the printout again. "Let me make another call."

Arkeley stood stock still while she called the substation's offices. Tucker started a game of computer solitaire-then had to close it out when she hung up her phone after less than a minute. "You're going to love this," she said. Arkeley's eyebrows inched up toward his hairline.

"He wasn't working at a substation. He was helping to dismantle it. The substation was a hundred years old and they were closing it down. Most of the buildings onsite are still standing but they've been permasealed. Which means all the windows are going to be covered with plywood and the doors padlocked."

"A vampire could tear a padlock off with his bare hands," Arkeley said. His face started to crease in a very wide smile.

"You said they liked ruins. Should we get on the road? We don't have too much daylight left but we could at least scope the place out, and maybe get an order of exhumation for Reyes' grave.

The smile on Arkeley's face stopped short. "We?" he asked

Caxton was about to reply when her phone rang again. She expected it was the building manager with a detail he'd just remembered but it wasn't-the call was coming from State Police headquarters, from the Commissioner's office. "Trooper Laura Caxton," she answered, placing the phone to her ear. When the Commissioner's assistant had finished relaying his message she hung up once more.

"We've been instructed to come to Harrisburg immediately."

"We?" Arkeley asked again.

"We, you and me. The Commissioner wants us, and he says it's urgent."