“No,” Caxton said, holding up one weary hand in apology, “I just—”
“And not just basic. We got six channels of HBO, ’cause Mom liked the Sarah Jessica Parker show.”
Caxton rubbed her face. “Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
“Discovery has that show about the crab fishermen, I like that one.”
Caxton went on, hoping that Gert had finally run down. “It is true, as you say, that vampires are harmless during daylight hours,” she said. “But half-deads aren’t affected by the sun at all. So we’re still in trouble. I need to think about what we’re going to do next. I have to have a little while to myself to think about that. Why don’t you find someplace comfortable to curl up and catch some sleep?”
“Sure,” Gert said. As easy as that. Her mommy was going to take care of everything—she didn’t need to worry. She picked a corner of the guard post and curled up there in a ball and was snoring a few minutes later.
This left Caxton alone with her thoughts. Which was problematic in itself, because she couldn’t seem to focus on out-thinking Malvern. Her brain was too busy punishing itself.
It did not strike her as any kind of terrible coincidence that Malvern had taken over the prison at the exact moment that Clara was finishing up her monthly visit. Caxton knew enough about how Malvern’s brain worked. For years now Caxton had outsmarted every vampire she met—except for one. Malvern always planned ahead. Caxton tended to improvise. As a result Malvern had won every single time, or at least, she’d gotten away. Survived. And that was what drove Malvern, her primary goal in all things—to live just one more night.
Malvern was more than capable of killing Clara when the deadline came. Any vampire would be. They didn’t see human beings as rational creatures with thoughts and feelings. They saw humans as livestock. Malvern wouldn’t bat an eyelash she didn’t have. In fact, Caxton knew, there was no guarantee that Malvern would even keep Clara alive for another minute, now that she’d served her purpose. She hadn’t claimed in her message that Clara would be around for another twenty-three hours. She hadn’t said anything of the sort.
But thinking like that was going to get Caxton exactly no where. She had to believe that Clara would be alive for almost a full day longer. That Caxton would have a chance to rescue her.
And kill Malvern, as soon as she was sure Clara was safe.
That was essential. She’d been fighting Malvern for years, and while she’d always saved the day, and kept people from being killed—most people, anyway—Malvern had always gotten away at the last second. She couldn’t let that happen again.
Malvern was clearly planning something big this time. She must be drinking gallons of blood to look so healthy and strong. Caxton could guess where it was coming from. She must be draining the prison population, using them as a captive food source. The administrators of the prison must be dead or collaborating to allow that to happen. Someone in the administration—the warden, she remembered—had been IMing with someone who used the same convoluted, archaic English that Malvern was famous for. She hadn’t quite put it together at the time, but it was obvious now. So this had been an inside job.
But turning the prison into her own private blood bank seemed to lack Malvern’s usual elegance. Malvern always thought several moves ahead, and she must know that her time at the prison was limited. Eventually someone on the outside was going to wonder why none of the COs had come off duty and gone home to their wives or husbands. Or maybe some prison bus would show up at the front gate, loaded with new inmates, and there would be nobody to let it in. One way or another the authorities would come in force, and then Malvern would be forced to fight her way out of the prison. No matter how tough vampires were, they could still be taken down by enough cops with assault rifles. She couldn’t be looking forward to that confrontation.
Malvern was on borrowed time. And yet she seemed in no rush. She was giving Caxton almost a full day to think over her offer. A nearly full day, half of which she would spend inside her coffin, unable to direct her minions, unable to fight for herself.
Of course, she hadn’t made it too easy for Caxton. The prison was still full of half-deads, and presumably at least one living human, who would keep Caxton from getting into too much trouble. Especially since they could watch her every move, keep track of everywhere she went, through the hundreds of video cameras that monitored every corner of the prison.
Caxton jumped up and grabbed at the camera mounted to the ceiling of the guard post. It held firm, even when she put all her weight on it. Grunting in frustration, finally she grabbed the pepper spray canister out of her bra and gave the lens a good coating. It would at least ruin the camera’s focus, even if it made the close air in the guard post stink of spicy food, and that made Caxton’s stomach rumble.
Those cameras. She couldn’t spray every single one of them.
But maybe there was
27.
After Malvern left the command center the half-deads went back to their tasks, some watching monitors, some trying to make the warden more comfortable. Her breathing was heavy and her face went very pale. She sat down heavily in a chair and put her head between her knees. For a very long time she just sat like that, not moving or speaking, while the half-deads tried to adjust her clothing or mop her forehead with wet towels. Clara stood by, watching it all, unable to do a thing to help anyone.
Then the warden sat up very suddenly and stared around the room with a wild eye. “I’m fucking fine! Don’t you dare touch me,” she shouted, one hand lashing out to smack the face of the approaching half-dead. The creature squeaked in pain and spat teeth onto the ground. It had only been trying to change the bandage on her eye. “It’s not going to have time to get infected,” the warden insisted, “and that antibacterial shit stings like hell.”
She started to get up out of the chair, but clearly losing an eye had taken its toll on her. She nearly collapsed and had to let a half-dead ease her back down to her seat. She looked up at Clara and just breathed for a while, which seemed to be about all she was capable of. Then, with an effort of will that made sweat pop out in beads on her skin, she pushed herself up out of the chair and headed for the door. “Hsu, you stick with me,” she said, grabbing the door frame and holding herself up with both hands. “I don’t trust these bastards. One of them might try something when I’m not looking.” Clara walked over to the door and tried to take the warden’s arm, but the older woman pushed her away. “You’ve got no reason to be nice to me,” she said.
“You’re a living, breathing human being. The only one in this room other than me,” Clara suggested.
The warden snorted in derision. “Living,” she spat out. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Not when it makes you feel like this. Come on.”
The warden was wobbling a little on her feet, but her voice hadn’t lost any of its steel. She stumbled through the corridors of the prison, Clara hobbling along behind her, careful not to take too long a stride. The warden stopped at several doorways to bark orders in at groups of half-deads who were gathered around radiators or television sets. “Get breakfast going! I’ve got more than a thousand assholes to feed. And you—I want a detail to check every dorm, every hour. Half these women hate the other half. We’ve got members of the Aryan Brotherhood crammed in the same cells as Latin Kings. If you don’t watch them at all times they cut each other to ribbons, because it’s what they think their boyfriends would want them to do. You see a shank, you take it away. You see them fist-fighting, you separate them. It isn’t rocket science. What? No, I don’t give a shit if they fuck each other. That’s what women in prison do, to pass the time. It’s not like they’re real dykes, they’re just bored.”
Clara’s shoulders tensed in anger, but then she saw the glazed look in the warden’s remaining eye, and the way her hands trembled. The older woman stopped suddenly in midstride and pressed one hand against her
