13 Bullets

Arkeley rose again, and this time he was going to leave. Caxton could just feel it.



"Any questions?" he asked.



The Commissioner nodded. "Oh yeah. I want to know what you're doing every step of the way. I've got so many questions you're going to feel like directory assistance from now on."



Arkeley smiled, his most gruesome, face-folding smile. The one he used when he wanted someone to feel small. "Well, sir, I intend to raid a vampire lair tomorrow morning at dawn. That's my next step. I'll need some support on the ground and your troopers are my best resource for that. Take whatever safety measure you think are appropriate-gas masks, kevlar vests, whatever, but have them ready and mustered at the station nearest Kennett Square by four thirty tomorrow morning. Trooper Caxton need not be among them." He turned to look at her and gave her a new kind of smile. This one looked a little melancholy. "You, young lady, can sleep in. You've been enough help locating Reyes' hiding place."



She had the presence of mind to nod and shake his hand. He left without saying goodbye or anything else-well, she had expected that. But there was still one thing she needed from him, something she had to know.



The Commissioner gave her the rest of the day off. She started by racing down to the motor pool to catch Arkeley before he could leave. She needed to know the answer to a question she couldn't have asked in the over-heated office. In the parking lot Arkeley was signing for an unmarked patrol car of his own so he wouldn't have to rely on her vehicle. He looked mildly peeved to see her but at least he didn't drive off while she just stood there.



"I have a right to know," she told him. "In the Commissioner's office you just gave up as soon as he tried to take me off the case. You're a tough guy but you caved over me." She tried to push a little self-esteem into what she said next, but it still came out sounding as if she doubted her own worth as a human being. "What is it about me that's so important? Why can't you afford to lose me?"



Originally she'd been convinced by his story, that because she had actually read his report she was the best prepared to fight vampires. Later she'd thought maybe he was grooming her as a replacement. When he took her to the Polders she'd honestly believed he wanted to keep her alive, that he was actually worried about her safety-but then after her failure at the hunting camp he'd been willing to write her off. She didn't understand any of it, she didn't understand why he valued her or why he disregarded her so easily. Why he tried to physically protect her or why he didn't seem to care if she got hurt emotionally.



"The night I took over this case," he said, his face neutral. "The night we met, a half-dead followed you home."



She didn't understand what that had meant, either. "I remember," she said.



"You were on this case before I was. You're part of the case. The vampires know you and they want something from you. I'd be a fool to let you out of my sight."



She remembered what he'd said about Hazlitt. If someone was determined to be your enemy you gave them exactly what they want. The vampires wanted her. They were out to consume her, one way or another. So he would dangle her before their toothy mouths just so he could get close enough to jump down their throats himself.



"That's... it?" she asked. Her heart sank in her chest. All the time she'd spent trying to prove herself, to impress him, was wasted. All that time and effort was wasted.



"That's it," he told her. He opened the door of his car and climbed inside. She let him go.



She was vampire bait. And that was all that she was.



She watched him drive away. She had no idea where he was headed. Perhaps he wanted to check out the substation near Kennett Square by himself, or maybe he wanted to exhume Efrain Reyes. Maybe he just didn't want to be around her, maybe he was afraid she would be angry.



She was, of course. And confused. And sad. And afraid. And just a little bit relieved.



Relieved because she had finally found how she fit into the vampire investigation. Because now she knew exactly where she stood with Arkeley.



She collected her own car and drove in the general direction of home, her over-worked brain a little assuaged by the sound of her wheels hissing on the asphalt and the rising and falling roar of the engine. She rubbed at her eyes and blinked a lot as if she was going to cry, but she didn't. She didn't even know why she expected to. Of all the emotions struggling inside of her none stood out so strongly as to require such an over-reaction.



Hunger blossomed inside of her and she knew it had to be bad if it could compete with all her other concerns. She pulled over at a place in Reading where they made good cheese steaks and ordered one "wit wiz," which meant she wanted onions and Cheese Wiz, the traditional condiments. She sat down in a little booth with her steak and a diet Coke and chewed resolutely on the sandwich. It was good but her mind kept wandering and her tongue stopped tasting anything. She was half done with her meal before she stopped to think about the real issue, the thing that should have consumed her with panic and really made her cry.



The vampires wanted her for something. Something specific, something specific to her life. The half-dead who followed her home the first night had been sent on a mission. But what mission? Just to scare her? In that case it had been successful. But she couldn't imagine the vampires would waste time just on giving her a shock. Her mind cast backward, a little desperately, looking for anything in her life that might explain the vampiric interest. She thought of previous cases she'd worked on, but nothing stood out. She worked highway patrol-how could that mean anything to Malvern and her brood? She tried to remember the car wrecks she'd seen, tried to draw some kind of connection but nothing came to her. She'd sent some people to prison, in her time, for driving under the influence, for possession of drugs. She had caught them, arrested them, testified against them in court. The perpetrators had been sad, broken people, though, people who needed to drink or inject methamphetamines more than they needed to stay out of jail. None of them had really put up much of a fight and they could never look her in the eye when they went to trial. How could a few drunk businessmen and stoned teenagers possibly matter to Justinia Malvern?



Caxton thought it must be something personal, then. But what? She wasn't the kind of person who made a lot of enemies. She didn't have a lot of friends, either-and that made her think of Efrain Reyes. A non-entity, Arkeley had called him. Someone with no real life. Someone no one would miss when he died. Caxton had a life, of sorts, but there were holes in it. Her parents were dead and she had no siblings. She had a few friends in the Troop, but they rarely hung out together any more. The beer she'd shared with Clara Hsu had been the first time she'd been in a bar in months. Clara-Clara would wonder what had happened to her if she disappeared, but not for long. Deanna would be devastated, mentally destroyed, but the only real change in Deanna's life post-Caxton would be she would have to go back to living with her alcoholic mother. If the one person who defined your life you had no life herself, what did that say about you? She had the dogs, who would miss her very much, but Caxton didn't suppose dogs counted.



Malvern had been looking for a fourth candidate, someone she could add to her brood. Every cell in Caxton's body squirmed at the same time. She stared down at the mess of grease and gristle on her plate and felt bile frothing in her throat. Was Malvern-could Malvern-turn her into a vampire?



She got back in her car and rushed home. She needed to get inside and be safe for a while. She would definitely sleep in the next morning, she decided, and let other, more qualified people raid the substation.



She knew the road back to her house like the lines on her palm. She could drive the route half-asleep, and often did. Yet as she approached her own driveway she felt suddenly as if she'd never seen the place before. As if she were no longer welcome in her own house. Unnatural, Arkeley kept saying. Vampires were abominations against nature. Was this how that felt? To be around life and warmth and comfort and feel like you were visiting some alien world?



She started to pull into the driveway and stopped short because she'd heard something. A crash, a bright melody of glass breaking as if a window had been knocked in. She unholstered her weapon and slowly, taking every possible precaution, stepped down into the grass of her lawn. She couldn't see anything from the front of the house so she edged around the side, toward the kennels and Deanna's shed.



Shards of broken window pane littered the side yard, long triangular pieces leaning up against the side of the house. Someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt, maybe a teenaged boy, was standing next to the shattered window, his hands resting on the empty frame. He looked as if he were talking to someone inside the house.



"Freeze," she barked in her best cop voice.



The boy turned to look at her. Flesh hung in tatters on his face. He was a half-dead. She discharged her weapon without even thinking too hard and the half-dead's fragile body split apart in pieces. The chunks slumped to the ground. The stink coming off of him made her eyes water. She stepped closer anyway, intending to search his pockets, when she finally had a chance to look in through the window.



Deanna stood there naked from the waist up, her outstretched hands, her lower face, her bare chest all covered in bright red blood.