23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(75)

Clara felt the skin crawl up and down her spinal column. She had no doubt that Guilty Jen was capable of carrying out her threat.

The phone in her pocket rang then and saved her from having to think anymore. She knew better than to grab for it, and instead let Guilty Jen take it from her. The set leader put it on speaker so everyone could hear.

It was the warden on the other end this time.

“Hsu,” the woman said. “You’re going to die. Do you understand me? There’s no way out of this that doesn’t involve me drinking your blood. I know you can hear me. I watched you take my phone. I couldn’t stop you, but I saw everything.”

Clara looked up at Guilty Jen, who shook her head.

“Hsu’s here, alright,” Jen said, “but I’m doing the talking. You know me, Augie. This is Guilty Jen.”

“Oh yes? She went to you for protection?”

“Not exactly,” Guilty Jen said. “More like I agreed not to kill her on the spot because I figured she might be worth something to you. You want her back? It’s going to cost you.”

Clara shook her head. If Guilty Jen turned her over to the warden now it would be all over—the warden would kill Clara immediately. If she could hold out for a few more hours, though, until Fetlock and his SWAT teams arrived, then maybe, just maybe, she would stand a chance.

“You name your price, I’ll meet it.”

“Simple. My set and I walk free out of here, no strings attached. You provide civvies for us to change into, and a car, and you never see any of us again.”

“I doubt that, if you mean you won’t be coming right back here the next time a deal goes bad or you get bored enough to kill somebody. But I won’t be here then, so fine. Bring her down to—”

Clara had been mouthing, No, no, and shaking her head enough to make Guilty Jen at least hesitate. “Hold on,” she said, and pressed mute. “You got something on your mind, Hsu?”

Clara nodded. “Listen. She’s lying to you. She can’t guarantee anything that you want. She’s not in charge here anymore. It’s the vampire who’s running the show. If you turn me over now the warden will kill me. That will just infuriate Malvern. She’ll hunt all of you down just because you thwarted her plan. They know all about respect, too,” Clara said. It probably wasn’t true. Malvern was far too smart to waste time on petty debts—but Jen didn’t need to know that.

“It means waiting until nightfall, right? The vampire’s in bed right now.”

Clara glanced at the screen of the BlackBerry “It’s almost three now. That’s only a couple of hours. You give me to Malvern instead, and she will be very grateful. She’s the one who really wants Caxton, not the warden.”

Guilty Jen thought about it for a second, then took the BlackBerry off mute. “Okay, Augie, we’ll bring her to wherever the vampire is at dusk. I’ll hand her over directly to the vampire. You have our stuff waiting.”

“You’re making a mistake, Jen,” the warden said.

“I don’t make mistakes. I make corpses,” Guilty Jen replied. “You want me to make one out of Hsu right now? ’Cause I will.” And then she ended the call.





40.

The sky overhead was blue, with only a few fat clouds scudding by high above. After the gloom and oppression of the prison’s interior Caxton’s eyes had trouble adjusting.

Caxton climbed up onto the roof and held on to the edge of the skylight to keep from sliding off. The roof of the infirmary had a pitched, shingled roof that was far too sloped to allow her to stand up.

She helped Gert up and clutched the back of her jumpsuit to keep her from falling. She pulled her makeshift rope up through the skylight and wrapped it around her waist inside her jumpsuit. You never knew when you might need a rope again. Then she craned her head around to look at the central command center, which sat atop the prison’s central tower like a UFO on a pedestal. Windows ran all the way around its circumference, and its roof was studded with searchlights, machine-gun nests, and communications antennae. She could see a little bit through the windows and it looked like there was no one inside.

“We’ve caught a real break,” Caxton said. “Don’t look down.”

Gert was looking at the edge of the roof, down below her dangling feet. If she slid it would be a long way to the ground. She probably wouldn’t die from falling twenty feet, but she would most likely break a leg or an arm. Caxton couldn’t afford to let either of them fall.