23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(31)

The warden looked at Malvern with an expression of pure reverence. “Your half-deads have been here all day, killing the COs I knew I couldn’t trust and replacing them. The rest might take things the wrong way, so they’re being herded even now into cells. We’ll lock them up and give them the same choice we give the prisoners.”

“Very good. And of the authorities outside these walls?”

The warden held up her BlackBerry. “I’ve been in touch with the local police department and the regional bureau of the state police. I’ve told them we had a small riot but that it was contained and we didn’t need any help. That’ll make sure nobody comes within ten miles of the prison until I give them the word that everything’s clear. We should have at least twenty-four hours before anyone starts asking questions, and even then they won’t know what’s really going on. During an emergency all the phone lines out of the prison are shut down except for my private line. We’re in total lockdown, and therefore in total control of the facility.”

“Very good,” Malvern said.

Clara tried to pay attention to what they were saying. She knew it was important—she had to understand the situation she’d stumbled into. But her eyes kept refusing to look at the vampire or the warden. They kept straying to look again at the bloodless corpses lying on the carpet between them.

Malvern followed her gaze. “Are ye thinking, Clara, that ye’re next?” she asked.

Clara could say nothing with the gag in her mouth. She knew her eyes had to be very wide. She’d been forced to watch as Malvern gorged herself, again and again. Now she could feel sweat rolling down her forehead and toward her eyes. Fear sweat.

“Ah, but ye’re different from this pile of corpses,” Malvern told her. There was the ghost of a chuckle in her voice. “Or at least—ye have somewhat that makes ye different. Special. Do ye know what it is?”

She waited patiently, as if expecting Clara to answer.

Clara turned her head slowly from side to side.

Malvern leaned close, close enough to kiss. Her skin was so cold and—and wrong—that Clara felt her own gooseflesh pulling back away from the contact. Malvern whispered in her ear. “Ye’re loved.”

Clara whined in fear. She knew exactly what Malvern meant. Her throat tried to form a word, even if her mouth couldn’t finish it. Laura.

Malvern nodded as if she had heard Clara perfectly. “She’ll come for ye, across any measure of space or peril. Right now she’s hiding behind a locked door where I just can’t reach. Yet when she knows ye’re in danger, how long do ye suppose it shall take her to come a-running?”

Malvern smiled. It is not a pretty thing when any vampire smiles. The teeth seem to spread outward, to grow even larger, to grow even in number. Malvern’s grin could draw blood all on its own.

She spun away, and almost danced across the room. It couldn’t last, but for the moment her skin looked almost pink. Almost flushed with blood. “Someone remove that rag from her mouth. I’d speak with her now.”

A half-dead reached up behind Clara’s head and untied her gag.

“She’s too smart for that,” Clara said, all at once. “She won’t fall for your trap. Anyway, I broke up with her today. Most likely she hates me right now and wants me to die.”

Malvern glanced briefly at the warden, who shook her head in negation.

“I was listening to their conversation the whole time. They spent most of it talking about you, Miss Malvern. They never talked about breaking up at all.”

Malvern smiled again, but it wasn’t such a maniacal grin this time. It was more of a shrewd, knowing leer. “You’re very brave. But I must insist—I’ve planned this ever so well. Timed it to a nicety. I found the one hour, in all the month, when you two were in one place. Have faith, girl. I’m cleverer than you by half.”

Clara bit her tongue before she could say anything more.

She didn’t want to accidentally tell Malvern something she might find useful. Instead, she thought, she needed to steer the conversation around to where she was learning things she didn’t know before. “That’s the whole point of this? Of taking over the prison? Just to get Laura?”

Malvern shrugged happily. “How I wish life could be that simple. No, child. This dungeon vile can offer me so much more. Look, already, how I bloom like a flower in a hothouse.” She held up her arms, which were clearly plumping out.