Of course Fetlock didn’t plan to actually let that happen. His intention was to have his windbreakers engage the half-deads with a withering cross fire, then let Malvern come swooping in right into the sights of half a dozen snipers. Even then he had backup plans. The best sharpshooters he had might not be enough to take down a vampire, and he knew it—vampires were devilishly fast, and snipers were most effective against stationary targets. He claimed to have some surprises hidden in his mobile command center, things he wouldn’t tell Clara and Glauer about. He also had his helicopter, though what it could do remained to be seen. “We had helicopters at Gettysburg,” Glauer had told him, arguing patiently while Fetlock just gloated. “Didn’t help much.”
“You used them there as support vehicles, mostly for intelligence gathering. Trust that I paid attention when I read your reports, Special Deputy.”
Glauer had shrugged and asked no more questions.
So that was the trap, which Clara had to admit sounded formidable. Meanwhile Darnell was up on the ridges making sure it didn’t prove too impregnable, that it didn’t scare Malvern off before she even got into Fetlock’s crosshairs. Fetlock and Urie Polder had figured out a way to make it look like the cops had foolishly ruined their own first line of defense. Rather than just take down the cordon of teleplasm and the perimeter of shrieking bird skulls, Darnell would tear down a few of the teleplasmic sheets as if he had been forced to do so to sneak in when he first started spying on the Hollow (he had actually been able to bypass them easily), then kick dirt over a couple of the skulls as if he’d carelessly disturbed them. They were fragile charms and easily disabled, and it was possible to make it look like he’d done so by accident. As a result of these efforts there would be a clear path for the half-deads to take through the defenses and right into Fetlock’s traps, but it wouldn’t look like they’d been given an engraved invitation.
By the time the sun set behind the western ridge, everything was in place. As twilight fell across the tree-lined slopes that hemmed them in on either side, Clara felt the muscles of her back stiffen and tense. She watched the last rays of red sunlight cut through the puffy clouds as if she would never see them again.
“Won’t happen right away,” Glauer told her.
“I know,” she replied. It was very unlikely that Malvern would strike exactly at sunset. She had to sleep all day in her coffin. They had no idea where that coffin might be, but it probably wouldn’t be within ten miles of the Hollow. So she would have to travel to the trap, which might take ten minutes or it might take hours. And she was far too clever to stick to any expected timetable. She would strike when they least expected it. Which meant they had to expect it to come at any moment.
Glauer and Clara kept wandering back and forth across the clearing, even as it grew so dark they could barely make out each other’s faces in the twilight. Even when they started tripping on tree roots and rocks. They had not been given orders to stop.
Every inch of Clara’s skin prickled with fear. Every pore of her body exuded greasy fear sweat, though the temperature dropped rapidly as the darkness grew complete. Every instinct she had told her to run away.
“Might not happen tonight,” Glauer said, his voice strangely loud in the dimness.
“You know it will,” she said.
Still. Fifteen minutes passed in full darkness, and nothing happened.
An hour passed, and nothing happened.
Two hours.
“Oh my God, come on already!” Clara screamed, trying to break the tension. Nearby one of the windbreaker cops grabbed his gun and trained it on her, his eyes wide, his back heaving as he sucked in breath. Apparently she wasn’t the only one going crazy with the waiting.
She tried to control herself.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a radio crackled somewhere behind her. She spun around and saw Fetlock leaning out of the back of the mobile command center. Yellow light painted half his face. He had a walkie-talkie in one hand and he brought it up close to his mouth.
“Unit Nine? Say again,” he ordered.
“Unit Nine reporting contact,” the walkie-talkie replied. The man on the other end of the connection sounded tense and harried. “We have multiple subjects, moving through the tree line, at locations Whiskey Three and again at Yankee One. Repeat, we have—”
The man fell silent. Clara couldn’t move a muscle. All she could do was stand there and watch Fetlock’s face. Nothing in it changed.
“Unit Nine, say again,” Fetlock ordered.
But Unit Nine didn’t repeat his information. Instead he started screaming, a terrible, tinny little sound coming from the walkie-talkie. The sound of a man being torn to pieces while he was still alive.
There was no question. The attack was starting.
42.
The Fed reached down and lowered the volume on his radio, but Clara knew the man up on the ridge was still screaming. She could hear it directly now, floating on the air.
“Everyone stay frosty. Maintain your posts,” Fetlock called to the cops in the Hollow. “This is what we planned for. What we’ve been training for the last month.”
There were a few cries of assent, of determination. Most of the cops just kept their heads down. They’d heard the stories. They knew what happened when the police tried to fight vampires.
So did Clara. “Glauer,” she said. “Glauer, this is going to get bad.”
“I know,” he told her. “Now shut up.”
She started to protest, but she knew he was right. Worrying about what came next wouldn’t change it. Talking about it only made the apprehension worse.
“All sniper units, report in,” Fetlock said into his walkie-talkie. One by one, eight men called in to report no contact.
Up on the ridge the screaming stopped. Not as if the man up there had been finished off. Just as if he’d run out of breath and couldn’t make any more noise.
“He should bring up the helicopter—get a better visual on the situation—light some flares,” Clara muttered. She couldn’t help herself. “He should give us guns.”
“I know,” Glauer said again.
“Ground units, report in,” Fetlock said.
One by one the SWAT troopers and the windbreakers started calling in. Just confirming they were still alive.
“Infrared, give me a report,” Fetlock said.
“No contact. No movement,” the walkie-talkie said.
“IR? Why is he using IR? Half-deads don’t radiate heat. He should be using night vision instead, so—”
“I know,” Glauer insisted.
Then he grabbed her arm. He must have seen something. Something Clara missed. Off to one side of them, a windbreaker cop started turning around, bringing his gun up. Something snatched him out of the dark and pulled him back into the woods, so fast he didn’t have a chance to report on it.
A moment later he started screaming. He was not fifteen yards away from where Clara and Glauer stood.
The SWAT troopers opened fire on where he’d been. There was no way they could be sure they weren’t shooting their own man, but they must have had orders to shoot anyway. Carbines barked and spat as bullets tore through the dark trees on that side of the Hollow. “Now, lights!” Fetlock called, and a bank of floodlights on top of the mobile command center swiveled in that direction and flared to life.
Clara just had time to see a skinless face peering out from between two tree trunks before it flickered away, too fast to follow. More bullets snapped off in the direction of the half-dead, but it was long gone.
“Ground units, fire at will,” Fetlock called.
But there was nothing to shoot.
The man in the woods had stopped screaming almost at once. Clara listened hard for any kind of movement in those trees, peered into the shadows for any human-shaped silhouette. But there was nothing.
“Guerrilla tactics,” Glauer said.
“What?” Clara demanded.
“She knows that Fetlock wants a
frontal assault. A big pitched battle. She won’t give him that. She’ll pick us off one by one. This isn’t a war. It’s a slasher flick.”
“You two—shut up or I’ll have you cuffed,” Fetlock shouted at them. “Ground units fall back. Form a perimeter, keep the man on your left and the man on your right in sight at all times. Do not engage the enemy until you have a clear target. Do not, repeat, do not under any circumstances—”
More screams came from the other side of the Hollow. Clara spun around to look, but there was nothing to see. Guns fired and lights swiveled around, blinding her for a moment. Over the walkie-talkie someone screamed, “It’s got my legs! My fucking legs!”
And then: silence.
Once again.
“Goddamn it,” Fetlock muttered. “Alright, get that bird in the air—get lights moving, cover the area in a standard sweep pattern, get me information. For fuck’s sake, someone get me information! I need contacts, people. Somebody give me a contact!”
“There,” Darnell said, peering into the gloom with his snake eye. “There—and there.” He pointed. His arm floated sideways and he pointed again. “They’s not many of ’em, but they move awful fast. They—”
He stopped because everyone saw the next contact. A half-dead, stripped down to the waist and barefoot, came running into the clearing, shrieking with high-pitched laughter. Its face hung in tatters from its cheeks and chin. It had something bulky strapped around its waist.
“She’ll take your blood, every one of you!” the half-dead screamed.
Then Glauer grabbed Clara, picking her up like a sack of potatoes, and threw her behind him. She reflexively struggled against him, even as the half-dead exploded.
It must have been wearing a belt of dynamite on a short fuse. The blast tore through the clearing, lighting up every face, every posture in silhouette. Men screamed and cried out and wept even as the blast echoed and boomed in Clara’s ears. Blood was everywhere, blood and—and—oh God, someone’s leg, someone’s detached leg was right next to her, it might have been the half-dead’s, or it might have belonged to a cop, it was too bloody to be sure—
“Squad heads, check your people,” Fetlock shouted. “Fall back, form a perimeter. Circle the wagons, people, circle the wagons! Shoot anything that moves, repeat, shoot anything that approaches this clearing!”
Another shrill giggle, and another half-dead came running toward the clearing. Overhead the helicopter’s rotor thundered through the still summer night. A lance of light stabbed down at the ground, lighting up the half-dead as bullets riddled his body. He spasmed and danced, but his hand reached for a plunger at his belt and then he disappeared in a cloud of red, and the shock wave banged into the side of a trailer like a rain of hammers.
“Squad leaders, keep your people in sight, fire at will, fire at will!” Fetlock screamed.
“Move it,” Glauer shouted, pushing Clara ahead of him as he bulled toward a foxhole. “Move your ass!”
Clara did as she was told, diving into the foxhole as a third bomber detonated at the edge of the clearing. The noise was unbelievable, the screams lost in the booms, the helicopter pounding at the air, pounding and beating until she thought her eardrums would pop. There were six windbreakers in the foxhole, and as she landed in the loose dirt at its bottom six guns were trained on her. One fired but the bullet went wide. Glauer landed next to her, then grabbed the cop who had shot at her, grabbed him and screamed in his face, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She couldn’t hear anything. She grabbed Glauer’s massive arm and tried to pull him off the windbreaker, but he wasn’t having it; he was too busy screaming at the man, screaming at him for almost shooting one of his own. There was another explosion and Fetlock shouted something; he sounded panicked; she’d never seen him be anything but calm and cool and collected. This was a disaster, a real cluster fuck. She had no idea what would happen next, but she knew it would be bad, knew it would be—would be—
Silence fell once more, but it was so unreal she failed to believe in it at first. She could just barely hear the helicopter’s engine. She peeked over the top of the foxhole and saw its light sweeping along the side of the ridge, lighting up one tree after another. Lighting up animal trails, lighting up old mining equipment that had rusted in place.
The light found a pile of corpses. The bodies of cops, at least half a dozen. They’d been stacked neatly, as if for later retrieval.
Fetlock’s walkie-talkie crackled and bleeped. Someone was calling for him, asking for further orders. They repeated the request.
She couldn’t see Fetlock from where she crouched in the foxhole, but she could still hear him.
“Stay vigilant,” Fetlock said. “This isn’t over by a long shot. They’re just giving us time to get scared.”
“It’s working,” Clara said. But only under her breath.
[ 1961 ]
Where am I? Malvern thought. She was too weak to project the words beyond the cage of her own skull. She was barely aware of the taste of blood on her shriveled tongue—a taste she’d missed so for lo these many years. She was all but blind, but she could feel the world gently rocking around her. Am I asea?
She received an answer, though she had not expected one.
“You’re on my boat.” A hand moved across her face and a wet towel swiped at the dirt that had crusted over her one desiccated eye. “You’re safe.”
She would have panicked, except that the hand didn’t smell human. It smelled like her own flesh, though far fresher. As the dirt came away from her face she slowly began to make out the pale round face of a fellow vampire, the red eyes, the pointed ears. The wicked teeth drawn back in a sad smile.
Ye can hear me, so I’m not quite dead.
“No,” the vampire responded, with a soft, sympathetic chuckle. “Though it was hard to tell at first. I found you buried in a shallow grave. How did you get there?”
There were … dogs … men with … rifles … I remember it but unclearly. Even thinking the words was a trial after so long. For years she’d languished in that makeshift grave, her thoughts, like her body, slowly fossilizing. She had lost so much in that time, piece by piece. Language had been one of the first things to go, so that after a while she could only scream in silence, incoherent howls no living thing could hear. Her sanity had fled not long after. I crawled into the soil like a cadaver. Covered myself …
“You’re weak still,” the vampire told her. “You’d been down there quite a while, with nothing to sustain you. Here. I can spare a little more.”
He opened his mouth wide and thick, clotted blood splattered across her face, most of it landing on the back of her throat. Undignified it might have been, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t care—she needed it so badly. She felt the blood soaking through her like water leaching into porous stone. Felt a trickle of life returning to her limbs.
Who are ye? And why did ye come for me?
“My name is Piter Byron Lares,” he told her. It meant nothing to her. “I’m … one of the last. Perhaps the last of us still able to walk under his own power. Our once great race has withered and declined so. Here. Let me show you what I do. What I’ve chosen to do with the time that remains to me.”
He put down the towel and cradled her in his arms. So very carefully—more carefully than ever a mother held her babe. He had to take such pains lest Justinia fall to pieces in his grasp.
He walked with a measured step like a priest in a processional. Slowly he brought her to another room, a cramped little space filled with engines and fuel tanks. A row of coffins filled the floor, each of them opened to show the bones inside. No, not just bones. Dim red eyes peered up at her, while paper-thin lips peeled back over triangular teeth as if the vampires in those coffins were jealous of the attention Lares showed her. As if they resented this newcomer in their midst.
“We’re dying out,” Lares said. “Going extinct. I’ve heard—from these others, I’ve heard the old tales. The glorious stories of what we once were. I
’ve devoted my immortality to keeping as many of us as possible alive, for as long as I can. I don’t know what will happen when I have to enter my coffin for the last time myself. But I’ll hold that day off as long as possible.”
One of the coffins was empty. It was clean inside, and smelled like it had never been used. He laid her down on the satin lining and arranged her hands across her chest. Straightened the tattered fabric of her mauve nightgown.
She could feel the thoughts of the other relics, the other dilapidated undead like herself, now that their brains were so close to hers. … too many already … not enough blood for us all … do you know who I am? I deserve the lion’s share … blood … must have more … blood … blood … blood …
“There,” Lares said, smiling down at her. “Welcome, Miss Malvern, to our happy little family. I’m sure you’ll get on just fine with the others. Now, if you’ll excuse me—I have to go out and find some more nourishment for us all. Please, rest and recover your strength. You’re perfectly safe here, I promise.”
She could barely hear his voice over the chorus of desperate thoughts around her.
… blood … more … blood … blood … I must have it … blood …
It was not an unfamiliar refrain.
43.
“All snipers report in,” Fetlock called over his walkie-talkie. “Repeat, sniper units report in. Unit one, report. Unit two, report. Repeat—unit two, report,” Fetlock said, going down the numbers even though it was abundantly clear all the snipers were dead.
32 Fangs: Laura Caxton Vampire Series: Book 5 Page 22