Arkeley nodded as if he liked what she said. “This doesn’t have to end badly. Not if we can get to the hearts before the vampire does. You can call the Gettysburg police, tell them where it is, tell them how to destroy the hearts.”
She nodded and grabbed for her cell phone. Dialed a number she knew by heart. Finally someone picked up in Harrisburg. “This is Trooper Laura Caxton,” she said. “Put me through to the Commissioner, please. No, wait, he won’t be in yet. Just get me the duty officer in charge.”
The dispatcher didn’t ask any questions. After a couple of seconds a bored-sounding man answered from the operations desk. She explained quickly what she needed.
The duty officer grumbled, “We’ll need a warrant for that.”
That would take time. Maybe hours. They would have to wake up a judge—and the judge would want some paperwork. Some kind of evidence to justify barging into private property and seizing an old rusty barrel. It would take more than one trooper’s panicked testimony. “There are exigent circumstances. The barrel is going to be used in the commission of a violent crime. Maybe a lot of violent crimes.”
“That would be a first. I don’t know, Trooper—”
“Listen,” Caxton said. “Listen closely.” She closed her eyes and tried to think of the words to light a fire under the OIC. A hundred vampires. Caxton had once seen what just two vampires could do. They’d eaten the entire population of a small town, leaving only one survivor. A hundred vampires—vampires who had been starved for more than a century, vampires who would wake up emaciated and cold and very, very hungry—could depopulate Gettysburg in a single night. “Listen,” she said again. “I will take personal responsibility on this. You get a patrol unit down there now and get that barrel. If you don’t a lot of people are going to die. They’re going to die painfully and all their families are going to grieve for years. Because you wouldn’t trust me right now. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Hey—yeah, you’re
“Send the fucking unit right now!” she screamed, and flipped her phone shut.
Arkeley and Harold were both staring at her when she looked up.
“They’re sending a unit to look for the barrel,” she told Arkeley.
“It’s still dark out,” he replied.
“I know.” She fumed silently. “They’ll send one man in a patrol cruiser. He might think to take his shotgun with him, but probably not. If the vampire is there, if he’s beaten us to it, he’ll take our guy apart piece by piece. We just have to hope our man gets there first. I’ll go there as fast as I can and try to stop anyone from dying, but I can’t fly. It’ll take me hours to get back. What could I have done differently?”
Arkeley shook his head. He didn’t have a nasty comeback, didn’t so much as call her an idiot.
She checked her things. Her Beretta, fully loaded, was back in its holster. She’d gathered up her pepper spray as well, her handcuffs and her flashlight, recovered from Geistdoerfer’s pockets before they’d revived him.
She turned to look at the half-dead one last time. When she was gone she knew Arkeley would destroy the reanimated corpse, smash in its head and cremate the remains. He wouldn’t bother trying to contact the professor’s family, at least not until afterward. Fine, she thought. Let them sleep in. Let them get one last night of peace before they had to hear about how John Geistdoerfer had met his grisly end a second time.
She stepped over to where he lay on top of his wooden case. “I have one last question before I go,” she said. “No torture this time, no threats. I just want to talk to the man who used to own that body.”
The half-dead’s eyes were dry and yellow in their sockets. They focused on her as if they were glued in place.
“When you searched me, Professor, you took my weapons away. You took my handcuffs, too. You found my cell phone, but you left it where it was. I don’t understand why you did that. You must have known what you’d found.”
“Oh, yes, Trooper. I knew what it was,” he said in that irritating high-pitched squeak.
“Why, then? Were you trying to help me? Did you think that might have made the difference, and helped me stop the vampire?”
The half-dead licked his dry lips with a gray tongue. His nose crinkled as if he’d smelled something foul.
“Maybe,” he said, finally. “If I say yes, will you let me go?”
“No,” she said, frowning.
“Then maybe I just didn’t think you could call anyone. Not while we were both watching you.” He turned his head away from her. “I’m a villain. If you’re done with me, just kill me already!”
She shook her head and grabbed at his shirt and his jacket. He struggled to pull away, to get his face away from her, but she wasn’t interested in that. Instead she shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out his car keys.
Moving quickly, she went to the front door of the museum building and pushed it open. Outside a bright blue light filled the sky—the color of night just before the dawn begins. Everything that had happened since she’d gone to Gettysburg College to interview Geistdoerfer had happened in a single night, but now that night was over. A layer of frost lay over the cars in the street, on the wooden utility poles, ready to melt into morning dew. Nearby a bird was chirping, a repetitive, shrill little sound that made her scalp feel tight. She really needed some sleep.
Behind her she heard the rustling of clothing, and her hands twitched in paranoia. When she turned around it was only to see Arkeley filling the doorway. “I should be going with you, but I can’t.” His eyes burned in the blue light. Cold, fierce, angry. “This should be my case, but I was too frail to finish it. You need to be my hands on this one.”
It was her case. Caxton was sure of that. Still she could understand his frustration. He’d been working most of his adult life on trying to drive vampires to extinction. He must have watched her failures and mistakes with growing dread, knowing he could have done a better job. If only his body still worked, if only he still had his strength.
“I’ll get what I can out of Geistdoerfer—if he comes up with anything else I’ll call you. I’ll help as much as I can from a distance.” His face fell. “Do it right,” he said. “Be smart, and don’t get yourself killed.”
It was the closest thing he could manage to wishing her luck. She just nodded and moved on to the next task. That was how she would get through this—one simple decision at a time.
She hurried down the alley to the parking lot, where Geistdoerfer’s car with its suggestion of tail fins waited for her. Its windshield was covered in a thin layer of white frost, which she wiped away with her sleeves. Then she climbed in and started up the powerful engine, listened to it purr. The sky was brightening by the minute. When she felt the car had warmed up enough she put it in gear and headed out, laying her cell phone on the passenger seat beside her. There were a lot of calls to be made.
Her stomach growled noisily. She hadn’t eaten in a very long time. Her brain was fighting her, squirming painfully in her skull. Her body was breaking down. It needed sleep, and food, and peace.
Not a lot she could do about that. But maybe, something.
She couldn’t sleep, not yet. Peace was an abstract. Food, though, was a possibility. There were few diners in that stretch of Pennsylvania—mostly there were family restaurants, the kind that didn’t open until the farmers started their day. Not for a while yet. She found a fast-food place that was open all night, decided to waste a few minutes if it meant her body would calm down a little. If it meant getting some energy back.
She pulled up to the drive-through bay. Cranked down the old car’s manual window and let cold air blast inside, across her face. It woke her up some. She shouted her order at the microphone, but nobody answered. After a while she tapped the horn. The big pneumatic noise it made drew tiny birds out of the trees across the road. Finally a sleepy voice croaked out of the speakers. “How can we help you?” it asked.
“Give me an egg sandwich and a cup of coffee,” she said.
“Do you want milk and sugar?” the voice blurted. There was a bad feedback whine that nearly drowned out the words.
“No,” she shouted back.
“Hash browns for only thirty-nine cents more?”
Caxton grabbed the bridge of her nose and squeezed. “People are going to fucking die if you don’t just put a fucking sandwich in a fucking bag for me,” she said.
The speaker cut off with an electronic belch. Then the feedback returned. “I’m sorry, I missed that.”
Probably a good thing, too. Caxton exhaled noisily. “Yeah, give me some hash browns,” she said.
