13 Bullets (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

It wasn't easy crawling out of the ruined conservatory, even with no more vampires on her trail. Caxton cut her hands on broken glass crawling out of a shattered pane and knew she was going to need a tetanus shot after she scraped herself on rusted iron. She got free at last, though, and headed for the front of the building, moving quietly, slowly to avoid half-deads. She was going to go get help for Arkeley. That was the end of it. Once he was safely on his way to a hospital (assuming he wasn't already dead) the case would officially be closed.

Out on the lawn she got a weird surprise-colored light that bounced off the trees and flashed on the wet grass.

Light washed over her, lighting up her hands, her damaged forearm. The light got in her eyes. It was red and blue, or yellow, or white. No less than twelve patrol cars stood parked at odd angles on the sanatorium's front lawn. Two ambulances and the Granola Roller joined them. Captain Suzie stood up out of the armored vehicle's sunroof, an MP5 at her shoulder. Her free hand waved Caxton on. Anger lit up Caxton's face and made it hot. Where had all these people been?

Why couldn't someone else have killed Deanna for her? While they waited out on the lawn she'd been inside fighting for her life.

Then the Granola Roller's rear door popped open and Clara jumped out, kneeand elbow-pads strapped over her sheriff's department uniform. Somebody shouted for her to stop but she kept running until her arms were around Caxton's chest.

"You didn't get killed," Clara said. "When I got your text message I went right to your house."

"Text message?" Caxton asked. But yes-she'd sent one, right before she found Arkeley in the shed. Hours ago.

"You said you needed my help but you didn't say what for. I went to your house and it looked like a war zone. The place was trashed and there were bodies everywhere. The dogs were whining like crazy."

"The dogs?"

Clara nodded. "They're okay. They aren't hurt anyway, just scared. I figured you would want to know."

The dogs were okay. That was something, some piece of good news to clutch onto. Caxton needed more. She needed more good, more life. More something to keep her from breaking down in hysterics.

"When I realized you weren't there I called my Department and your Troop and the Bureau of Prisons and everybody I could think of, I hope that-"

Caxton leaned in and pressed her lips against Clara's. After a moment of surprise the police photographer yielded to her embrace. It felt as if she were melting in Caxton's arms. Half a dozen catcalls and cheers rose from the parked police cars but Caxton didn't care. It had been a very long night.

"Thanks for coming to my rescue," she said.

Clara's eyes were very wide. The rolling, changing lights painted her face now red, now green, now blue.

Caxton strode up to the Granola Roller and nodded at Captain Suzie. She looked around and found Clara's Sheriff as well. He was out of his jurisdiction but maybe the State Police had temporarily deputized him. She would worry about the paperwork later. "Somebody give me a shotgun," she said. One was fished out of a patrol car's trunk and carried up to her. "There are an unknown number of half-deads inside that building," she said. "We need to find them all. But first we have to get Special Deputy Arkeley out of there. He's not in great shape." She realized too late that she had no authority over anyone there-she was just highway patrol, after all. "Does that sound good?" she asked.

Captain Suzie grinned down at her. "Lead the way, Trooper," she said. Caxton took six heavily-armed troopers with her, all of them carrying big powerful flashlights. She remembered the way to Malvern's ward perfectly but still she hated going back into the darkness of Arabella Furnace. She felt as if those shadows could hide anything. When they finally reached the plastic curtain outside the ward she breathed a real sigh of relief. Nothing had jumped out at them. No pale shapes had darted from the shadows to tear them to pieces. "Okay, get that stretcher ready," she said, and pushed through the curtain.

She was surprised to find Arkeley sitting up inside. She was a lot more surprised to find Malvern walking under her own power.

The old, old vampire didn't look fully healed, not by a long shot. Her muscles were as thin and dry as vines in wintertime and they wrapped around bones easily visible beneath her papery skin. Her tattered nightgown hung on her like a tent. Her face was drawn and spotted and her one good eye looked only half inflated. But the blood Scapegrace and Deanna had brought to her must have been enough, just enough, to get her out of her coffin for the first time in over a century. She was standing up, walking even, advancing on Arkeley with her mouth open. Her teeth looked fully recovered-sharp, deadly, and numerous.

"That's right. Come here," Arkeley said. He was propped up on one arm. The other waved Malvern closer. "Come on, you old hag. You want it. You can have it."

He had cut his hand somehow. There was fresh blood on his palm. Maybe he had never stopped bleeding-that was the hand with no fingers, the hand Scapegrace had bitten in half. When flashlight beams converged on the hand it gleamed wetly. Caxton could feel the need, the desire, radiating from Malvern's body. Every fiber of her newly reconstituted self wanted that blood. It would be all she could see, all she could think about.

She knew exactly what Arkeley was doing. A judge had determined a long time ago that Malvern was a human being, that she enjoyed protection under the law against physical attacks by the police. If Malvern made the slightest move to harm or injure a human being that changed. No court in the state would convict the state trooper who shot a vampire while she was attacking Arkeley. As soon as she touched him she was fair game.

She wanted to yell at Arkeley, to order her escort to drag him out of there. She wanted to save his life. She knew what he would say about that, however. His whole life, twenty years of it anyway, had been devoted to getting this one chance. He didn't want anyone to blow it for him now.

Caxton stood her ground. She could feel the troopers behind her bristling. They wanted to attack. She held up her hands to stop them.

"Come on. Come on and take it," Arkeley rasped.

Malvern glided toward him across the floor. Her hands, which lung loose at her sides, clenched and relaxed, clenched into tight fists and then released again. She had to know. She had had plenty of time to lie back in her coffin and imagine what it would be like to take a bite out of the Fed who had imprisoned her-what dreams of vengeance would she have had? Yet she also had to know what would happen to her. What that mouthful of blood would cost her.

"You can't resist," Arkeley taunted. "If you were human, maybe, you could handle this. But you're a vampire and you can't resist the smell of blood, can you?"

He scuttled toward her, his hand always outstretched, wagging in her face. He was verging on committing entrapment but Caxton decided that if they asked her in a court of law she would lie for him. Anything to give him this win. A thin, translucent eyelid came down over Malvern's eye. It shuddered gently as if she were about to faint.

"Come on," Arkeley shouted. His body was shaking too. He had to be running on fumes. "Come on!"

Her mouth closed slowly. Painfully. Then it opened and a creaking sound like a paper bag being folded up leaked out of her. "Damn ye," she said. Then she turned around, slinked back to her coffin, and crawled over the lip. She lay back and let her wrinkled head rest on the silk lining.

"No," Arkeley yelled, and slapped his injured hand against the floor. "I've spent too long on this. I've lost everything. Not again!"

With hesitant, weak little motions Malvern reached up and grasped the lid of her coffin. Then she pulled it shut with her skeletal hands.