Gert nodded. Caxton looked up at the video camera in the ceiling.
“She’s close to the far end of the dorm,” Clara whispered. “There are three half-deads between you and her. It’s just a straight run and she doesn’t look like she has any idea that something is up.” The intercom crackled for a second—Clara had left it turned on, though she wasn’t saying anything. Finally she came back and said, “Laura. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Caxton said, even if Clara couldn’t hear her. Then she pointed at the gate and held up three fingers. Two fingers. One.
The gate popped open with an electronic buzz.
They stepped through. Every light in the dorm was on, and Caxton had no trouble seeing the rows of cells, the medical carts in the walkway, the half-deads drawing blood from the arms that prisoners shoved through the bars. Dead ahead, not fifty yards away Malvern had her back turned. She was wearing her decrepit mauve nightgown, and the skin on her head and bare shoulders was perfect, creamy, unblemished.
Caxton’s vision narrowed down to a spot just left of Malvern’s spine, just below the wing shape of her shoulder blade. Right where her heart would be. She was running so fast, she didn’t even feel her feet moving beneath her.
You didn’t aim a shotgun, she told herself. You pointed it. You didn’t squeeze the trigger. You yanked it. You could do all that with just one hand.
Caxton had closed half the distance, Gert right by her side, when the intercom blared again. Clara wasn’t whispering this time.
“Laura, look out! They were hiding on the upper level the whole time!”
Caxton stumbled to a stop. Malvern turned around to look at her with a wicked grin full of nasty teeth. Caxton turned around and looked up at the galleries above her, to the second tier of cells. From either side, a female vampire dropped down, landing effortlessly like a pair of cats.
As if they had all the time in the world, they started walking toward her, their red eyes locked on her face.
56.
Have ye made your choice, then?” Malvern asked. “And were ye three unanimous in the choosing?”
Caxton brought the shotgun up to shoulder level. She swiveled from side to side, pointing the weapon at one of the new vampires, then the other. She thought of how she’d tricked Hauser, but she didn’t have the time or the imagination to come up with something like that again. Anyway, she knew Malvern. Malvern would have stuck the stupidest of her brand-new brood with guard duty. These two would be smarter than Hauser.
They were getting closer. They clearly enjoyed the anticipation, the moment before the kill. One of them, the one in a stab-proof vest and panties, was licking her lips. The other, dressed in a jumpsuit with the sleeves torn off, kept wiggling her fingers in the air as if trying out a new set of claws for the first time. Vampire fingernails looked just like their human counterparts (if paler), but they could tear through sheet metal without breaking. They had no trouble at all taking apart a human body.
“Forbin, please secure Miss Caxton,” Malvern said. As scared as she was, Caxton thought that was odd. Always before Malvern had referred to her by her first name. What game was the old bat playing? “I think we can forgo the niceties now. She’s turned me down, and more’s the pity. We could have made history together, dear.”
Forbin was the one with the torn sleeves. The other one didn’t have to be told to go for Gert. Maybe, Caxton thought, she could give Gert a chance to run away. Not that she could outrun a vampire, but—