her at first just slightly, but with increasing intensity. She’d smelled it plenty of times as a kid. She tried to think what it smelled like, but as always before she drew a blank. It wasn’t the smell of a campfire, thick with resin and wood smells. It wasn’t the smell of a candle flame, either; there was no tang of paraffin there. It was more like an un-smell, an absence of smells. It smelled like a blanket covering her face, preventing her from breathing. It smelled like suffocation.
They’d been walking maybe a quarter of a mile when she started to cough. Involuntary little spasms of her throat at first, tiny eruptions that soon graduated to full-scale convulsions. She pressed her balled-up fist against her mouth to try to hold them in, but that just made her chest heave all the harder.
Last she noticed the heat, and in many ways that was the worst of it. It had been a crisp winter night above the surface. Down here a dry heat warmed her body, making her sweat down the collar of her winter coat. Her armpits grew moist, and then her chest. Rivulets of sweat coursed down her body. A crystal droplet formed at the end of her nose and she had to keep wiping it away. The heat pressed against her face as if she’d opened the door of a furnace to peer inside.
She started to take off her coat—and then Raleigh was on her, one arm wrapped around her neck and crushing her windpipe. Caxton tried to go limp, but the vampire held her rigid and lifted her slightly until only the toes of her boots touched the floor. Then Raleigh threw her down, a discarded doll, and Caxton fell hard against her side. She couldn’t breathe; she sucked at the air, but it choked her before it got halfway down her throat. She tried to talk, to explain, but the words couldn’t form. Her hands reached up and tore at the collar of her shirt, trying desperately to loosen it. Weakness overcame her, though—her body refused to move the way she wanted it to, as every fiber of her strength was directed toward her lungs, her body’s need for air paramount.
Down on the floor the air was a little cleaner. Slowly, with painful jagged inhalations, she fed her cells the oxygen they needed. The sweat that bathed her face caught a puff of breeze and cooled her down. “I just,” she said, the words like switchblades opening in her throat, “just want—to take off my coat.”
Raleigh stared down at her sharply, then nodded.
Caxton struggled out of the garment, slipping off her backpack in the process. She had a portable air supply in the pack, as well as clothing to protect her from the heat. She started to open it up, but Raleigh kicked it out of her hands and back down the hall, the way they’d come.
“I’ve heard how tricky you can be,” the vampire said, her eyes narrowing. “Maybe you have another gun in there.”
“You won’t need that anymore,” Raleigh said.
Caxton understood what Raleigh meant. She wouldn’t be leaving the mine, at least not alive. She would never feel cold again.
Slowly Caxton rose to her feet. She kept her hands where Raleigh could see them, and when she was standing she lifted them above her head. Raleigh nodded her acceptance and then spun Caxton around and sent her down the hallway again, toward their destination.
Ahead the corridor widened and grew more regular, as if it had been more carefully carved. Caxton thought they’d come maybe half a mile from the bootleg mine entrance, though it was next to impossible to accurately judge distances in a long, almost featureless hallway. It wasn’t much farther on that the corridor ended in a broad junction where many corridors intersected, creating a room considerably larger than the one where Raleigh had discharged the Beretta. The same style of lights illuminated the room, but they were set farther apart and the chamber was gloomy and dim. Wherever the lights blazed they shed cones of pale yellow light down toward the floor, cones that were sharply defined by the swirling smoke in the air.
There was not a lot of furniture in the room. There were four coffins set up along one wall like a miniature crypt. One coffin had to be for Jameson, a second for Raleigh. The third must hold the remains of Justinia Malvern, though why it was closed Caxton didn’t know. Maybe Jameson didn’t like looking at her all night, considering her condition. She would be a constant reminder of his own vulnerabilities, of the fact that while he might live forever, he wouldn’t stop aging. Caxton wondered how Malvern felt about being stored there like a broom in a closet.
The fourth coffin’s lid stood wide open and Caxton saw that it was empty. That one was probably meant for Simon, she decided. The boy himself was chained to a timber that held up the ceiling. He did not look conscious. Near him, where he could keep an eye on his son, Jameson sat on a weird-looking chair.
Jameson was wearing his ballistic vest and a pair of black jeans, but no shoes. His feet were dark with coal dust, but his face was glaring white. He rose as Caxton walked into the room and she saw that his chair was made of human bones held together with thick twists of baling wire. Mostly pelvises and skulls, with femurs for its legs. Classic vampire design.
Five half-deads stood in poses of attention around the edges of the room, as if they guarded the corridors leading away from it. Their torn faces were lowered and their hands were folded in front of them. Caxton had never seen half-deads who looked so disciplined or orderly—normally they formed cackling anarchic mobs. The only thing that motivated half-deads to behave themselves was fear. Jameson must have taught them some pretty strong lessons.
Caxton stumbled forward into the room, choking. The smoke was thick in her mouth and in her lungs, and the heat had gone from tropical to infernal. She felt like she was made of molten, sagging lead. It was all she could do not to fall down on her knees and give up.
“Nothing to say, Trooper?” Jameson asked, smiling down at her. He moved closer to her, almost close enough to touch. But not quite. Even at her strongest Caxton would have been no match for him physically—and bare-handed she couldn’t even scratch his skin, especially after he’d fed. He wasn’t taking any chances, though. He never had while he was alive. Now he seemed downright paranoid.
She shook her head and just tried to breathe. This is it, she thought. She had faced death so many times since she’d first met Jameson that she had thought she’d grown immune to the fear. It was suddenly back, more intense than she’d ever felt it before. She was about to die and there was nothing she could do about it.
Something in her refused to give up, though. A part of her brain that kept looking for angles, for opportunities. It came up with very little, but it kept trying. It suggested something to her and she considered the option carefully. Then she took in a long, shallow breath and spoke.
“You win,” she said.
Jameson studied her with his eyes. “This isn’t a competition,” he said. “It’s the natural order. My daughter and I are predators. You and your kind are prey, that’s all. To survive, we must feed on your blood. I know from your perspective that must look dreadful, but if you could see beyond your own mortality, you would understand. Just as I have come to understand.”
Caxton smiled despite herself. “Natural order,” she said. “That’s interesting.” She broke down in a coughing fit, but he waited patiently for her to finish. “You were the one who taught me that vampires are anything but natural. That they’re evil, true evil. I think those were your exact words.”
“I’ve had time to broaden my view,” he said. “Alright.” He turned to face one of the half-deads. “You, get some more chain. The rest of you, help him secure her to a timber.” He turned to Caxton again.
“You’re about to pass out, Trooper. There’s not enough oxygen down here to keep you awake. I’ll try to make your death painless—I owe you that much. After all, if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have ever come this far.”
Caxton’s eyes went wide. He was right, of course. He had accepted the curse as a way to save her life.
If she hadn’t needed his help so badly, he would never have become a vampire. Everything he’d done, everyone he’d killed, all that blood was on her hands. It was what had driven her to desperate tactics, and what had drawn her to Centralia—to find forgiveness for what she’d created. Now that drive for absolution was going to be her death. She thought carefully about what to say next. “You owe me—you said that before. That you owe me a great deal and you intend to pay me in full.”
“And so I have. I had plenty of chances to kill you before now, and plenty of reasons to do so. I held back for your sake. Honestly, if you hadn’t come here tonight, if you’d been smart enough to know when you were beaten, you could have lived. But now you’ve found my lair. You’ve threatened my family with violence. I think that wipes the slate clean. I’m going to save you just long enough to give my son a good meal. You’ll have a last chance to be useful. It’s the most noble death I can think of.”
