They were drowned out by the ringing in her ears. She could feel her body around her but it was completely numb, rubbery and dead. She could move if she really wanted to but just then she didn’t really want to.
The fear was gone altogether.
That was the best part. She knew things were still bad and that they wouldn’t end well, but her fear was gone and she could think clearly again. She didn’t want to sit up—that might break the spell—but she looked forward, through the windshield, and tried to see where they were going. There was something out there but it wasn’t the highway. It was pale and big and it had long triangular ears. It was a vampire, maybe Malvern. The vampire raised its hands to her and they were full of red blood. It was offering that redness to her, like a gift.
Scapegrace slapped her across the back of the head and her eyes whirled around in her head and she was back, the ringing gone from her ears.
“I said, are you okay?” Hazlitt yelled. He had one hand on her neck, maybe feeling for her pulse.
She wanted to bat him away but then she looked down and saw she was still holding the baby skull. Whatever had happened she’d managed not to let it fall out of her hands. She remembered she wasn’t allowed to let go of it. She pulled away from Hazlitt as best she could with her shoulders. “I’m fine,” she managed to say. Her voice sounded weaker than she felt. “What happened?”
“You swooned,” the doctor told her, his voice thick with gloating.
She scowled. She wasn’t the kind of woman who swooned. She thought about it, though. Once, when she and Ashley (Deanna’s predecessor) had been in Hershey on vacation, she had drunk chocolate martinis until she had literally passed out. She had woken up on the floor of the ladies’ room with a crowd of scared-looking cocktail waitresses looking down at her. It had felt a lot like what had just happened—but even that hadn’t made her feel so much shame.
Wow, she thought. If Arkeley could have seen her just then he would have had concrete proof of all the horrible things he’d ever said about her. Thank God he wasn’t in the car. Because he was dead.
She worked her face muscles, stretching out her jaw, puffing out her cheeks, trying to revive herself. By the time they reached the hospital she felt pretty much recovered. Hazlitt drove up onto the main lawn next to the statue of Hygiene and they piled out of the car, Caxton very careful not to drop the skull even though her palms were clammy with sweat.
Twelve or thirteen other cars were already parked haphazardly on the grass. They were all empty. A bonfire burned close to the front doors of the hospital. Caxton was pretty sure that the Corrections Officers who ran the place weren’t just having a weenie roast. She was right. As they walked up toward the entrance she saw the COs lined up on the ground near the fire, their hands tied behind their backs, their faces down in the grass.
She thought they must be dead. It was almost a relief to think that. When one of them moved her body sagged with brand new horror.
Tucker, the guard who had helped Arkeley find out Reyes’ personal information, strained his neck trying to look up and see who had arrived. Caxton did everything she could to look away, to not be seen, but it didn’t work. His eyes met hers for a moment and it was like they had a little conversation, it was like they had some of the magic of the vampires and they could communicate with just the firelight that shook in their eyes.
His eyes were easy to read, even from twenty feet away.
That was her job, of course. Helping people. At the moment she was indisposed, however. Tucker was going to die because she hadn’t been strong enough. Just like everybody else. There was blood on her hands—the metaphorical kind, anyway.
“That guy means something to you?” Scapegrace asked. He didn’t give her a chance to deny it. He stormed over to where Tucker lay on the grass and scooped up the big CO in one arm. Tucker outweighed the vampire by probably a hundred pounds but it didn’t seem to matter. Scapegrace fastened his big toothy mouth around Tucker’s neck and bit down, almost gently. Like he was biting into an apple and didn’t want to spurt any of the juice. Then he began to suck.
Caxton had no recourse but to scream for him to stop. She might as well have yelled at an avalanche—if anything she just spurred him on. The CO’s face went grey, then white. It never got as white as the vampire’s skin. His eyes rolled around in his head and his body quivered but he never screamed. Maybe Scapegrace had crushed his larynx. When it was over the vampire just threw the body down on the ground. It was useless. Blood ringed his mouth, bright red blood. “They’re all going to die,” he told her. Some of the other COs whimpered. One began praying in a sobbing, warbling voice.
Scapegrace took him next.
After the third or fourth victim had been drained Hazlitt cleared his throat. “Leave the rest for now,” he said. “Justinia wants to talk to our guest.”
Scapegrace jumped up and ran his forearm across his wet mouth. He moved across the grass so quickly he left trails in the air. Without seeming to move at all he had his hands around Hazlitt’s neck. He forced the doctor down to the ground until he was kneeling on the wet grass, looking up into the vampire’s eyes with sheer terror bringing waxy sweat onto his forehead.
“You’re not one of us yet,” Scapegrace said. “You think you can remember that?”
The doctor nodded emphatically. The vampire let him up and then they all went inside.
52.
The tiny skull in Caxton’s hands quivered and she nearly dropped it. She did let out a little squealing noise. Scapegrace and Hazlitt stopped to look back at her. The vampire grinned cockily at her predicament.
A millipede with long, hairy feelers had crawled out of the left eye socket and was working its way across the back of her hand. Its body looked wet and slimy. Its legs made her skin itch. It was all she could do not to jerk her hand away. If she did, though, she knew that Scapegrace would cripple her instantly. Knowing the teenaged vampire he would probably put the millipede in her hair, afterwards, just to torture her.
She bent her knees and gritted her teeth and tried not to care. It was just an insect, she told herself. It was extremely unlikely that it was poisonous.
Carefully she raised the skull to the level of her mouth. She took a deep breath and blew on the millipede, trying to knock it off her hand. Its head waved in the jet of air but then its back legs anchored between two of her knuckles. She blew harder, and harder, until she thought she might pass out again.
Scapegrace snorted out a mocking laugh. She sucked in air and then spat it at the millipede until it finally flew off of her hand. The vampire shook his head in amusement and then gestured for her to follow. “This way,” he said, “if you’re okay, now.”
Hazlitt ran ahead into the darkness and switched on a light in the corridor ahead.
All but one of the fluorescent tubes in the corridor had been smashed. They hung above her like jagged glass teeth, sparking now and again. What little light remained was barely enough for her to find her way to the far end of the passage. They were headed directly for Malvern’s private ward—she recognized the route they took from her previous visits.
Scapegrace glanced at Hazlitt, then lifted aside the plastic curtain and went inside.
Caxton started to follow but the doctor touched her arm and shook his head.
Together they stood there for long minutes listening to Scapegrace retch up his cargo of stolen blood. Tucker’s blood, Caxton thought. Maybe Arkeley’s blood. He was feeding Malvern, of course, just as Lares had the night that Arkeley killed him.
When Scapegrace was finished and the noises had stopped Hazlitt nodded at her.
She pushed through the plastic curtain and stepped into the blue-lit room. Her eyes went out of focus for a moment, adjusting to the new light, and her head grew light.
She thought she heard someone calling her name and she swam back to lucidity. She was so scared she thought she must be going crazy. “Laura,” she heard, again, a woman’s voice. Was it Malvern? No, that was impossible. Malvern’s vocal cords had dried up a hundred years ago. “Laura.” It was as clear and as loud as if someone stood behind her, calling her. She turned but she knew nobody would be there. It was as if a ghost were talking, like the ghost in Urie Polder’s barn.
“Officer?” Hazlitt said, looking a little concerned.
