Vampire Zero (Laura Caxton, #3)(27)

Astarte’s voice on the other end was very tinny and distorted by heavy static. She caught very little of what the woman said. “—Deputy, I—assistance—most serious—”

Caxton swore under her breath. She’d forgotten what lousy reception she got down in the basement.

“Hold on, ma’am. I can’t really hear you. Give me a second and I’ll try to move to a better location.”

Mouthing I’m sorry at Fetlock, she stepped out of her office and headed for the stairs. Astarte kept talking. Maybe she hadn’t heard what Caxton said.

“—really quite—wouldn’t have, if not—”

In the stairwell she lost another bar of the signal, so she rushed up the stairs two at a time. At the top she pushed open the door and stepped into the main lobby of the headquarters building. Troopers in various states of uniform were congregating there around the duty sergeant’s desk, probably receiving their orders for the night.

Caxton pushed through them and out the front door into a flurry of snow and darkness. Four bars. Good.

“Ma’am, can you repeat all that?” Caxton said. “I’m very sorry about the bad connection.”

“There’s no time,” Astarte said. Her voice sounded strained, but it wasn’t the phone. “I told you already—he’s here!”





Vampire Zero





Chapter 18.


“Mrs. Arkeley, please, stay on the line,” Caxton said, then took the phone away from her face. She rushed back inside the HQ building and pointed at the first trooper she saw. “You—get Officer Glauer up here. He’s in the basement.” She pointed at another and said, “You, call the local cop shop in Bellefonte and tell them there’s an emergency.” She checked her phone and gave them Astarte’s number so they could do a reverse look-?up and get the address. She hated to send local cops into a vampire scene—they wouldn’t be ready for what they found—but she had no choice. It would take her more than an hour to get there herself, even if she sped recklessly the whole way. Astarte’s life might hang on a balance of minutes.

“Ma’am, Astarte, are you still there?” she asked, lifting the phone to her face again.

“Yes, dear. Momentarily. He’s outside the house right now.” Caxton heard a distant chiming sound. “Ah!

He just broke a window in the kitchen, I believe. You’re not going to make it in time, are you?”

“I have people on the way. If he sees the police coming he’ll probably scare off out of there,” Caxton said, trying to make herself sound as if she believed it. “I’m coming as fast as I can. Lock yourself in somewhere, if you can—anything to slow him down.”

“Then you think he was serious, when he said my only other option was death? Yes, Laura, I can hear it in your voice. It’s odd. I’d always assumed that when my time came I would greet the Reaper with arms wide open.”

“Get somewhere safe, as safe as you can,” Caxton said. “I’m coming!”


Glauer came thumping up the stairs and rushed out into the lobby. He didn’t need to be told what was going on—when Caxton beckoned him and ran out into the parking lot he just followed. A thin layer of powdery snow had covered her Mazda when she reached it. She didn’t have time to brush it off. Climbing inside, she grabbed the blue flasher she kept for emergencies and clamped it on the roof of the car, then plugged it into the cigarette lighter. She didn’t have a siren built into the car, but the light would at least keep them from getting pulled over on the way. She waited for Glauer to cram himself into the small passenger seat, then slammed on the accelerator and tore out of the parking lot and shot out toward the highway. The windshield wipers made short work of the snow in front of her, but new drifts kept piling up on the hood. At the on ramp she fought her way through the midst of the rush-?hour traffic—for once people actually got out of the way when they saw the flasher—and raced up the fast lane, heading northeast.

“It’s Jameson’s wife. His widow. His whatever,” Caxton explained. Glauer hadn’t asked, but she figured he must be wondering where they were going in such an all-?fired hurry. “She’s under attack.” She risked a glance over at him. He sat patiently looking straight ahead, his hands on the dashboard to brace himself every time she stepped on the brake. “From what I heard she hasn’t got a lot of time.”

Glauer took a look at the speedometer. “We’ll make it,” he promised, though he must know as well as she did that he was just being optimistic.

She tossed her cell phone to him. “Coordinate with the locals. Bellefonte can’t have much of a police force; it’s a tiny little place. Isn’t there a state police barracks out there, though?”

He flipped open the phone. “Yeah. At Rockview Station. That’s just a couple miles from town.” He made the calls, got people moving. Before she was halfway to Bellefonte he had three patrol cars headed for the scene, and two more cars with a pair of local cops each already parked out front. “There’s no answer at the door. They want authorization to force entry. Do I send them in?” he asked. They’ll probably get killed if they do, she thought. Astarte would definitely get killed if they didn’t.

“Yeah,” she said. “But tell them—tell them to be careful. Tell them to treat this like they’re breaching a survivalist compound full of gun nuts. Tell them not to get themselves killed if they can help it.”