23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(67)

Which was where all the half-deads were, of course. It would be the most heavily defended spot in the prison, she was sure.

It was going to be her next stop.

She put down her pen and got up. Now she just had to figure out how to get there. The central tower was just on the other side of the infirmary, she knew. It was no more than a couple hundred yards away. But Caxton had already made a quick check of the prison’s medical wing. There was the pharmacy, where she and Gert were holed up, and beyond that a single long room full of beds. Empty beds. There must have been patients in some of those beds when the prison was overrun, but they were gone now, probably shoved in cells in one dorm or another where they could be more easily watched. Beyond the room of beds was a barred gate that she would never be able to get through, not without heavy-duty cutting equipment she didn’t have.

She stretched and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, trying to wake herself up. Maybe she could go around to one of the dorms, and make her way through to—

Suddenly she stopped in place.

“What’s going on?” Gert asked, grabbing her hunting knife from where Caxton had placed it under the cot.

“Shh,” Caxton hissed. She’d heard something. Someone screaming. It sounded like it came from the far side of the barred gate. It hadn’t sounded like a half-dead. It sounded like a human being, in real trouble.

Whoever they were, there was nothing she could do for them, she told herself. But she kept listening all the same.





36.

The BlackBerry rang again. Clara pressed her hands over her pocket to try to muffle the sound, but she knew there was no point.

In the darkness she could feel people moving around her. Human people. Half-deads, like vampires, were unnatural creatures. You could tell when they were nearby because the hair on your arms stood up. Your skin prickled with gooseflesh, your body reacting to the sheer wrongness of the undead. The people gathering around her were human. She could only sense them by the small sounds they made. The noise of slippers dragging along the cement floor. Their breathing.

They said that when your sense of vision was impaired—say when you were in a perfectly dark room—your other senses grew stronger. It helped a lot if you were terrified that you were about to die, Clara discovered.

The handheld rang a third time. It felt like time was slowing down. Coming to a stop. Clara expected her life to flash before her eyes.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” someone said, in the shadows. It was not a pleasant voice, even if it had the normal human timbre. Someone else laughed and it was definitely not a nice laugh.

Clara reached into her pocket and took out the BlackBerry. Its screen lit up the darkness for a few feet around her, but not enough to reveal what was lurking in the shadows. Just enough to hurt her eyes. She fumbled with the handheld, looking for the button that would answer the call.

“Put it on speaker so we can all hear it,” the voice from the shadows instructed.

They could see her. She was sure of that. They could see her face in the light of the BlackBerry’s screen. She nodded carefully. Then she looked at the glowing keyboard and pressed the appropriate buttons.

“Hsu? Hsu, are you there?” the BlackBerry demanded.

Clara bit her lip. It was Fetlock on the other end. “Uh. Hi. Deputy Marshal, this isn’t a good time—”

“So I gather,” he said. “Glauer wasn’t here to get your message. I sent him to fetch our lunch while we planned what to do about your absence. Lucky for you I monitor all of your calls, both incoming and outgoing. It sounds like you’re in real trouble. I’ve called the local authorities for Tioga county. They’re waiting for me to take the lead on any assault on the prison. As soon as Glauer gets back we’ll head up there—it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Can you hang on that long?”

Clara gritted her teeth. “I’m not alone right now,” she said, hoping Fetlock would take the hint. “I can’t really talk.”

“I need information, Hsu, if I’m going to put together an appropriate response strategy,” Fetlock insisted. He was not the type to take no for an answer. “Tell me about Caxton. You said you went up there to visit her, well, that’s very commendable of you, I’m sure. You get a gold star for being a good girlfriend. It turned out to be lousy timing, though. You said Caxton was at large. Has she killed any vampires yet?”

“No,” Clara said. “She—”