wide.
Caxton hurried toward the mute girl and asked her what was the matter. Violet’s answer was to open the door up all the way and step aside, letting Caxton look into the little room. The stove was glowing merrily and its light clearly showed that both pallets were empty.
“Where’s Raleigh?” Caxton asked. Maybe she had just gotten up to go to the bathroom, she thought.
Maybe she’d been unable to sleep and had gone for a little walk to clear her head. She wouldn’t let herself think of the other possibility, the more dreadful one.
Violet’s face clouded with anxiety for the first time since Caxton had met her. She shook her head from side to side, then raised her hands in a gesture of submission. Caxton frowned, which just made the girl more upset. She held up one hand with the index and ring fingers pointing down. Moving them deftly, she simulated someone sneaking away, walking carefully and softly so as not to be heard.
“Okay, thanks,” Caxton said. She started to run off, but then stopped herself. She had no reason to believe Raleigh was in danger, not really. She had no indication that Jameson was anywhere near the building. Yet she had an obligation to the inmates to keep them safe. That was far more important than her desire not to disturb their sleep. “Go wake up Sister Margot,” she said, staring into Violet’s eyes until the silent girl nodded in understanding. “Tell her—tell her we may have some trouble tonight.” Then she was off like a shot.
Raleigh could be anywhere. Caxton would search the entire building if she had to. Back around the corner. Down the hallway that led to the other dormitory wing—maybe Raleigh was just headed to a midnight magazine session in some other room, Caxton told herself.
Maybe she had gone to meet her father, to tell him that yes, please, she’d like to become a vampire.
No. That wasn’t possible. Caxton had seen enough of the girl to know she wasn’t capable of making that kind of choice for herself. Simon, on the other hand—but Simon was in another state, under police guard.
No time to worry about Simon.
Caxton grabbed a candle from where it burned at the top of the main stairway, studied it for a moment, then shook her head and put it back. She had a mini Mag-Lite in her pocket and wasn’t afraid to use it.
Hurrying up the stairs, she switched it on and played it across the long white plaster walls.
The third floor was empty, and silent, as it should be—it was all therapy rooms. All cold and deserted.
Caxton moved on. The second floor, which consisted of dormitories (which she’d already checked), a big unused library, and a couple of yoga studios, was deserted as well, though the central hallway resonated with the breath of all the sleeping girls, their snoring making Caxton’s candle flicker. She peered through the gloom, looking for half-open doors or stealthily broken windows, but there was nothing to be found.
Main floor next. The central foyer was empty. So were the offices—Sister Margot’s office door was wide open and Caxton glanced inside, found nothing. She hurried to the other wing and the big dining hall. The long wooden tables had been cleared off and the rolling carts full of bused bowls and tableware long since trundled away. Caxton studied the long, sharp shadows of the big room with her mini flashlight but found nothing, not so much as a mouse.
She turned to go, not sure where to check next, when a noise made her shoulders jump up around her ears. It was a sound that would have made her jump at any time, but at that particular moment it nearly made her squeal in terror.
It was the sound of a dropped spoon bouncing on a flagstone floor. A jangling, pealing sound, as loud as cannon fire in the still dining hall.
Caxton dashed across the big room and knocked open the door at the far end with her shoulder. Beyond lay the kitchen—a room full of big prep tables and wide sinks, with iron pots and skillets dangling from the ceiling on hooks. Caxton’s flashlight beam shattered as it passed through the hanging pans and griddles and showed her odd- shaped patches of the wall beyond. She moved quickly to the side of the room and hurried toward its back, where the food was stored in massive walk-in pantries.
Caxton licked her lips. They had suddenly gone very dry. She moved slowly, quietly, toward the open door— then threw it back all at once.
Her flashlight shone down like an accusing finger on Raleigh, who kneeled on the floor, her face upturned and wracked with terror. She held an open jar of honey in one hand. It was her spoon that had fallen to the floor.
“I thought you were fasting in your uncle’s memory,” Caxton said, suddenly very angry. She fought to control herself.
“Do you know how hard it is to eat nothing for three whole weeks?” Raleigh asked, in a very small voice.
“Come on,” Caxton said. She’d had enough of the girls’ after-hours hijinks. “We’re going back to your room. You’re going to sleep there all night if I have to sit on you.” She grabbed Raleigh’s arm, not too roughly, and dragged her up to her feet.
The girl didn’t pull away from her as Caxton marched the two of them through the dining hall and back toward the main stairwell. Just outside the entrance hall, however, Raleigh grabbbed Caxton’s arm very tightly and shook her head.
“Did you hear something?” Caxton asked. When she shut up and listened for a second, she heard it, too.
“What is that?” The sound changed to a kind of pathetic gagging and hissing that didn’t sound like an animal at all.
Caxton pushed open the door to the main hall and pointed her flashlight beam through, a narrow cone of light spearing through the darkness. It lit up Violet, who was slumped across the bottom steps of the stairway, her arms up in the air as if she were fending off a brutal attack. Caxton swiveled her light to the side a little—and saw Jameson Arkeley’s red eyes burn brighter than the room’s candles as he crouched over the silent girl.
Chapter 30.
Caxton raised her weapon and fired right at Jameson’s heart. The shot tore open his black shirt, just a few inches off. The vampire spun around and glared at her, but with her free hand she was already reaching for the amulet around her neck. It felt warm in her hand, which meant it was working.
On the stairs Violet writhed and pushed herself up a step. Her face was contorted by fear and her hands were clutching at nothing.
Caxton fired again, and this time hit her target. The bullet clanged off his chest and spun away into the darkness. How was it possible? Jameson’s body curled up like a caterpillar in a fire, but only for an instant. He straightened up quickly—and then he was on her. It was that fast. She felt a cold wind blowing toward her and then she was on the floor with the vampire on top of her, pinning down her gun hand, his teeth pressing against her cheek. He felt cold and wrong and he stank of death.
His weight pressed down on her wrist and the tendons there bent and twisted. Her fingers spasmed and then flew outward and her weapon fell away. He snatched it up and threw it into the darkness.
He held her there silently while she struggled. He outweighed her by a considerable margin, but it was his strength that truly held her—she might as well have fought off a stone statue. Clamping her eyes shut, she turned her face to the floor and tried to get her free arm up to protect her eyes, but he just grabbed her wrist and smashed it painfully against the flagstones. Her flashlight rolled away across the floor.
She could hear Violet gasping and choking on the stairs. She could hear her own breath pushing in and out of her chest. She could hear her heart beating in her throat. Jameson was as silent as a tomb.
Then he pulled back a fraction of an inch. Enough to let her roll over on her side. Not enough to get her legs underneath her. “I warned you off,” he said, “but you wouldn’t listen. There’s part of me that still doesn’t want to kill you. Do you believe that?”
She didn’t answer—couldn’t. But then he shook her violently.
“Yes,” she managed to exhale.
“That part,” he went on, “gets smaller every night. The other part of me, the curse, gets stronger. Right now it’s telling me to tear open your carotid artery. To lap at your blood. I can imagine how good that would feel. How good it would taste. It would solve some problems, too. It would make my task easier.”
He was trying to convince himself to kill her, she realized. He was psyching himself up. She had to think of
