“I need guns,” Caxton said. There was no reason not to get to the point. She had her shotgun pointed at the warden’s head. The plastic bullet inside wouldn’t kill the woman—she was still alive, and therefore had more structural integrity than a half-dead—but it would make her very, very unhappy. “Real guns. Where’s the armory?”
“Downstairs.” The warden picked up a piece of paper from her desk as if this were the kind of question she was asked every day. “You’ll have some trouble getting in, though. When the lights went out I sent most of my half-deads down there to wait for you. There was nothing for them to do up here, and I figured no matter what your next move might be you would have to go through the Hub.”
“The Hub?” Gert asked. “What are you, what are—you talking—”
The warden stared at Gert as if she were some kind of rare insect. Fascinating and repellent at the same time. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Someone’s been naughty. The Hub is where every long corridor in the prison comes together. It’s designed as a choke point. In case a riot breaks out in one dorm, we can lock down the Hub and it can’t spread to any other wing. Believe me, you won’t get through it.”
“Even if I use you as a hostage?” Caxton asked.
“That would be a good plan, normally. With Malvern in her coffin I’m in charge, and if I told the half-deads down there to back off, they would have to. You would march right through there, presumably with one arm around my neck, right? Then I could unlock the armory door for you, and you could go in and get all the guns you wanted. There’s a problem with that, however.”
“Oh?” Caxton asked.
“Yes. I’m not going to let you take me hostage.”
Caxton steadied her grip on the shotgun and leaned forward into a firing stance.
The warden leaned forward into the light. For the first time Caxton saw that one of her eyes was missing, a ragged hole in her face ringed with crusted blood. It wasn’t even covered by a bandage. “I’ve had one shit day,” the warden said. She pulled a pistol out of a drawer of her desk and before Caxton could shoot she brought it up to point at her own temple. “You give me a reason, any reason at all, and I’ll blow my own brains out,” she said.
42.
You’re bluffing,” Caxton said.
“Am I? There’s one way to find out.” The warden fitted her finger through the trigger guard of her handgun. “I’m dead anyway. Maybe not today. Maybe not for years yet. But I have inoperable cancer. My one big chance was Malvern. She could make me immortal, she said. She promised. All it would cost me was a few of my prisoners’ lives, which was a price I was perfectly willing to pay. But it looks like she lied. It looks like she never intended to make me a vampire. When she wakes up tonight, she’ll probably kill me, and then bring me back as a half-dead. That’s almost worse than going out in a hospital bed with a drip in my arm. So I have no reason not to pull this trigger.”
“You think I care?” Caxton asked, trying to keep her voice from breaking.
“Oh, yes, I do,” the warden said. She cocked the hammer of her pistol. The muzzle hadn’t moved a hairsbreadth from where she had it jammed against her temple. “I know you, Caxton. I know you well enough, anyway. I’ve met enough dirty cops in my time—sometimes they ended up here, as prisoners, and sometimes they were just dropping somebody off. You get so you can tell right away. It’s like they have a certain smell.”