Vampire Zero (Laura Caxton, #3)(95)

She slid down her father’s body, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Her eyes were wide open and her hands were clawing at the air. Her whole body started to shake so badly that it was difficult for Caxton to see that her trauma plate was bowed out from the inside. The Teflon bullet had passed right through her body and nearly made it through the plate as well.

Jameson stared down at his own chest. His own vest had a dent in its nylon cover—but on the right side, where it could do him no harm. He lifted his eyes to meet Caxton’s, his mouth already opening in a hiss of anger. She felt his mind rushing at her, through her own eyes, like a runaway train hurtling into a tunnel, but she had already reached for the amulet around her neck. It grew scorching hot in her hand and then he was gone, receding from her, his psychic attack thwarted before it could begin. He reeled back as if he’d been slapped.

Caxton took the moment of surprise and horror to move back, toward the mouth of the corridor behind her, stumbling backward, unwilling to look away from Jameson’s face. She stopped suddenly when he drew himself back up to his full height and stomped toward her. She raised the Beretta and pointed it at his heart.

“She unloaded that gun,” he howled. “I heard her discharge it!”

“New model,” she said, trying to stay calm. “Larger magazine capacity.”

The Beretta 92 she’d carried since her first day as a state trooper had a magazine that held fifteen rounds. Jameson had seen that gun a thousand times while they’d worked together. He had assumed that she would still be using the same weapon. But the new gun held seventeen bullets. Jameson nodded sagely, as if she had finally impressed him. Maybe for the first time. “But I think you’re empty now.”

“Unless I loaded a round in the chamber before I came down here,” Caxton agreed, keeping the gun pointed at his chest. “That would have been the smart thing to do, don’t you think?”

Before Caxton had met Jameson, before she’d ever worked on a vampire case, she used to keep a bullet in her chamber all the time. It meant she was ready to shoot as soon as she drew the gun from her holster, rather than having to fully cock the weapon to load the first round. Jameson, on the other hand, had never walked around with a cocked gun. He had equated doing so with driving while not wearing a seat belt. He had entered law enforcement many years before she had, back when small arms occasionally discharged by accident. That almost never happened these days, but Jameson had always been pathologically cautious.

What he didn’t know—what he didn’t have to know, as far as Caxton was concerned—was that she had looked up to him so much, had copied him in every form and move so well, that she had trained herself not to load a round in her chamber anymore. She had broken herself of the habit. Her weapon was completely empty.

“The smart thing,” he said, taking a step sideways. He was so light on his feet that it looked more as if he was sliding across the floor, as graceful as an ice-?skater. “You’re doing the smart thing these days?

Because the smart thing would have been to shoot me already, instead of standing here talking about it.”


He leapt then, his whole body bounding effortlessly into the air, huge and powerful and coming right for her. Jumping away herself would have been useless—he was too fast. Instead she jabbed the gun at him as if it were a knife and squeezed the trigger again, even as she leaned back. He threw his arms up to protect his face and his leap fell short by inches. Her gun didn’t fire—the trigger didn’t even move—but he had doubted himself for just long enough that she survived the attack. If she wanted to stay alive, she needed to run.

She ran.





Vampire Zero





Chapter 58.


Caxton knew she’d bought at most a second or two of time. Jameson wouldn’t stop to mourn his daughter, not until Caxton was dead—and he wasn’t going to give her another chance to be tricky. She also knew he wouldn’t come after her himself, at least not right away. He would send his half-?deads after her first. It was an age-?old tactic of the vampires, one of the many he’d studied back when he was alive and fighting them. Disarmed, barely able to breathe, weak and alone, Caxton had all the same proved that she was dangerous when cornered. The half-?deads would harass her, tire her out, maybe even wound her—and then he would swoop in and finish her off.

She was not wholly defenseless, even without bullets in her gun. As she ran she grabbed the ASP baton off her belt and flicked it open, letting its weighted end bob along beside her as she hurried down the corridor. She had all her other cop toys as well, some of which were more useful than others. Numerous side galleries flashed by her as she ran, all of them dark, some breathing hot vapors at her, some cool and empty. All of them were tempting. In the well-?lit main corridor she felt vulnerable and exposed. Before she could turn off the main passage, though, she needed to catch her breath. In the smoky tunnels that meant just one thing—she had to recover her backpack. It lay just where Raleigh had thrown it, about halfway up the tunnel that led back to the bootleg mine entrance. As she scooped it up she looked up the passage toward the room where Raleigh had almost emptied her weapon. It was tempting to think she could just run up there, climb up through the trap door, and run for her car. There were more bullets in the trunk, a handful of Teflon rounds and a full box of conventional ammo. That would be more than useful right then. There was only one problem—the half-?deads had almost caught up with her. She could hear them behind her, their footfalls echoing around a bend in the tunnel that just hid them from view. There was no way she could reach the entrance and make her way to the surface before they caught up with her.