“Laura,” he called out.
It felt like she’d been doused in cold water. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken her first name. She had no doubt he used it calculatedly, to get her attention. She turned and stared at him from maybe twenty feet away. “I’m losing my shit,” she said.
“Then find it again. Now.”
She nodded. Swallowed, hard, her throat still bruised and thick. She fought her swimming head and got her focus back. “What’s our next step?” she said, finally.
His eyes widened a fraction. “You tell me.”
Fair enough. This was her investigation. “We go see what Malvern’s come up with, if anything. Then I’m going to go meet with the local cops. He’s probably not going to attack again tonight—not here or anywhere else. He’s already fed and he’s smart enough to get off the streets. Tomorrow night is another matter.”
He nodded and walked with her up the stairs, back toward the museum. He was pretty slow going up—one of his knees just wouldn’t bend sufficiently, so he had to climb the steps one at a time. He took a rest at the first landing, just stood there looking down at his shoes. She wanted to hurry him along, but out of respect she waited for him to catch his breath.
Upstairs Malvern had been busy. When they arrived at her coffin they found she’d written quite a bit on the laptop. Her hand still rested on the keyboard, but it was motionless, perhaps waiting for the next question, or maybe she’d just run out of energy.
What she had written, though, got a reaction out of them both.
Caxton read the words on the computer screen again. “She’s saying she can raise Geistdoerfer as a half- dead. She’s suggesting he knows something we could use. How could she know that?”
“They can communicate without words, you know as much,” Arkeley said. “She sensed him coming.
She must have sensed Geistdoerfer’s death as well. I think we should do this.”
“No, no, no. No. Absolutely not,” Caxton said. “Never. Can’t be done. There is zero possibility here and you should just stop thinking about it right now.”
She said it to herself. Arkeley was back by the coffin, patiently asking Malvern questions and then waiting while she tapped out the answers, one painful letter at a time.
“No. We will never do that.” She stood in a corner muttering to herself. It made her feel crazy. But she wasn’t the crazy one. Arkeley was crazy for even considering this. He had changed. His wounds and his bitter regret had driven him insane.
“This is a nonstarter.” She knew perfectly well that it was the only way. That she was going to do it, that she was going to help Malvern bring Geistdoerfer back from the dead just so she could question him, was almost a given.
There remained, however, some residue of her former self, some resinous discoloration on her soul that still looked like Laura Caxton, soldier of the law. Some particle of her being that still believed in human dignity and compassion for the dead. There wasn’t much of it, just enough to make her feel extremely nauseous.
“It’s not even possible,” she said, aloud this time. “Malvern didn’t drain his blood. My vampire did.
Nobody can call back a half-dead except the vampire who killed him.”
Arkeley tapped the laptop’s trackpad. “I already asked that one,” he said. Malvern’s answer scrolled down onto the screen:
“Which means what, exactly?” Caxton asked.
Arkeley shrugged. “It means it doesn’t matter. Any vampire can call a half-dead. As long as the corpse has had its blood sucked, the curse is in it. The same curse they all share. I believe her.”
“That’s…scary,” Caxton said. Malvern was an inveterate liar. A master manipulator. Believing her—trusting her—was absolute foolishness. “Look, we know her. We know she’ll say or do anything if she thinks it gets her one step closer to getting out of that coffin on her own two feet. She said she needs blood to do this, more blood —”
Arkeley scrolled up a little on the page:
“Exactly. She gets blood out of this. What happens if we feed her and then nothing happens and she says, ‘Oh gosh, guys, I guess that wasn’t enough blood. Maybe if you gave me a little more…’ I mean, how much are you willing to give her?”
Malvern had an answer for that, too:
“Oh.” The average person had about six quarts of blood. So Malvern was asking for a little over a pint.
That much would revivify her considerably, but it would hardly be enough to bring her back to full health.
“If she demands more, she won’t get it. I was quite clear on that,” Arkeley said. “I’ve thought of all these things, Trooper.”
Caxton shook her head. No matter what he thought he knew, there was a catch somewhere. There always had to be when Malvern was involved. “It’s a trick.”
“Yes,” he said. “It is. It’s a trick to get blood from us. That’s the only thing she ever wants. The only thing any vampire ever wants. In exchange we get information we truly need.”
“This is worse than the worst thing I have ever done,” she said, talking mostly to herself.
“Shall we get started?” Arkeley asked.
She clamped her eyes shut and held her tongue. “Yes,” she managed to say, though that tiny part of her, that last shred of who she used to be, was screaming no.
She went down to the basement, where Harold was waiting. The night watchman didn’t ask any questions. He helped her as he had before, taking Geistdoerfer’s body, getting his arms under the torso while she took the legs. The body felt dry and lighter than it had before. She was very conscious of the fact that at any moment, with no real warning, her vampire, the vampire of Gettysburg, could call to Geistdoerfer. Even while she was carrying him the vampire had the power to reanimate him.
It didn’t happen in the time it took to carry the corpse up the stairs, nor while they tied his dead hands and feet together and laid him out on top of a wooden cabinet. From a display case nearby the shriveled head of a woman with a horn growing out of her forehead stared down at them, her mouth frozen in an eternal groan. Caxton turned away and saw a cat with two faces, one open and mewling, the other with its eyes and mouth permanently shut.
None of the room’s skeletons pointed accusing fingers at her. No formless voice came out of nowhere to say “
Well, she was starting to get used to those.
When she was finished feeling sorry for herself she turned to find that Malvern had left another message:
Steeling herself, fighting down all her instincts, Caxton started to unbutton her shirtsleeve. The physical pain, she told herself, would almost be welcome.
Then Arkeley stepped up and said “No,” and she stopped where she was. “No, that’s not necessary.”
Malvern’s hand began to move across the keys again.
“No,” Arkeley said again. He grabbed the hand and moved it away from the keyboard. He turned to look at Caxton. “I’ll donate the blood. I’ve already cut myself tonight. The wound hasn’t had time to close properly.”
In response, Malvern merely typed:
