She was still considering her escape plan when the security monitors over her head switched themselves on. In the dark guard post the white light they blasted over her was difficult to look at, and at first she had no idea what the image on the monitor was supposed to be. It was in color, though there wasn’t much color to see, just a tinge of red in one corner of each screen on an otherwise unbroken field of white.
Then the view moved backward and showed that the red was the dully glowing pupil of a vampire’s eye. The view pulled back farther to display all of Malvern’s face, horribly ravaged by time. But just as horrible was the fact that it didn’t look as bad as it should. The skin was intact and snowy white. If it was heavily lined, if there were dark pouches under the vampire’s eye and eye sockets, if the ears weren’t quite able to hold themselves up under their own weight, it was still a face of something vibrantly and dangerously alive.
Caxton had only once in her life seen Malvern look that good, and it had been in one of the vampire’s own memories, transmitted to her via a psychic link they no longer possessed. In the real world Malvern’s flesh had never looked so healthy, so vital, so whole.
The camera kept moving backward. Soon Caxton could see all of Malvern’s upper body, and what looked like the arm and hip of someone standing next to her. Malvern was quite gently holding the other person by the elbow. Caxton knew that it would take only the slightest muscular pressure on Malvern’s part to turn that soft touch into a bone-snapping vise grip.
There was no sound to go with the picture, and nothing moved within the frame. Every once in a while Malvern blinked. Then she said something that Caxton couldn’t make out—it was hard to read a vampire’s lips since all those teeth got in the way—and the camera jerked sideways, the entire picture swaying. When it stopped moving, two figures were visible on the screens. Malvern and Clara.
Someone off camera handed Clara a piece of paper. Written on it in large block letters was
23 HOURS.
25.
They walked Clara, very slowly, to the central command center of the prison, a round room located on the top level of the facility’s main building. Broad windows let in a little light, but far more came from dozens of flickering security monitors, most of them displaying empty hallways and locked doors. Every few seconds the view on each screen would change, or pan back and forth to show another section of the prison. On one screen Clara saw a view of B Dorm. It looked like the prisoners had mostly turned in for the night, though a few were still pacing their cells, obviously concerned about what the next day would bring.
Around the central command center a skeleton crew of half-deads were bent over control panels and computer terminals, monitoring the prison’s security systems. The largest number of them were gathered around a monitor at the far end of the room, where they pointed at the screen and giggled among themselves.
On the screen, Laura was standing next to a woman Clara didn’t recognize. They were both staring at something intensely, something just above their heads.
Clara’s heart sank when she saw her lover there. She had known Laura was at large in the prison, but she’d been able to imagine her crawling through ventilation ducts or hiding in some out-of-the-way spot—she could imagine Laura somewhere safe. From the grainy low-resolution image on the screen, however, she could tell that Laura had been putting herself in danger. As always. Her face was stained with blood or something darker and her clothes were spotted with gore.
Clara turned away from the screen. She couldn’t look at Laura anymore, or her heart would start breaking all over again.
In the center of the room a video camera had been mounted on a tripod. Malvern led Clara in front of the camera while the warden stepped over to operate its controls. For a while they just stood there, while the camera’s lens zoomed in and out. The warden cursed and adjusted a lever on the side of the camera.
“Dawn approaches,” Malvern said. “Make haste.”