Already the flesh of her leg was healing itself, knitting itself back together. Caxton couldn’t see the femur anymore—the skin had already closed over the wound.
“What have ye done?” Malvern rasped.
Caxton broke open the shotgun and pried out the spent shell.
“Sharpest thing in the world,” she said. “The only thing in the world that could even scratch you right now, I imagine.”
“No!” Malvern said.
Caxton reached for the last of her shells. This one had to count.
“What is it?” Clara asked.
“Vampire teeth,” Caxton replied. She kept her eyes on Malvern. “The teeth of a vampire named Congreve, to be exact, loaded into a perfectly normal shotgun round. It was Jameson Arkeley’s idea originally. He knew you could hurt each other. He thought maybe your teeth would retain some of their power, even after you were dead.”
She finished loading her last shell. Then she took a step toward Malvern. Nothing was finished yet. Not unless she got a clean shot at Malvern’s heart. That was her only vulnerable spot. The only way to kill her. She took another step.
Malvern moved then, as fast as she’d ever seen. Caxton was certain she was dead. She’d been counting on the vampire’s surprise, the shock of actually being wounded, to slow Malvern down.
She’d figured wrong.
It could have been over right then and there. Malvern could have fallen on her before she could get the last shot off. She could have torn Caxton to pieces where she stood. But Justinia Malvern had never been one for the direct assault.
Instead she liked to do nasty things. Sneaky things.
So she went for Clara.
It happened so fast Caxton could barely keep up. Malvern was a white streak across the floor of the cave and then she was standing still, holding Clara in front of her with her remaining arm, holding Clara like a human shield.
Clara, the person Caxton had loved more than anyone else in the world. Clara, her lover. Clara, her girlfriend.
Caxton steeled herself. She’d spent two years trying to forget all that.
“Perhaps,” Malvern said, “we should discuss this.”
Caxton gripped the shotgun in both hands. They were no more than five feet away from her. Point-blank range, even for the lousy shotgun.
“Ye can kill me, oh, yes, we both see that now. Ye’ve been clever, Laura. So damnably clever. Ye’ve outwitted me.”
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” Caxton said.
“Ye have one shot remaining. Why don’t ye take it? Slay me, girl. Do what ye will. It’s what Jameson would have wanted. But make sure ye don’t hit this one, hmm? Make sure ye don’t kill thy lover.”
There was no time to think. If she gave Malvern a second to come up with a better plan, it would be all the time the vampire needed. Caxton brought the shotgun up and pointed it right at Malvern’s heart.
Which happened to be behind Clara’s chest.
Clara’s human flesh wouldn’t slow the teeth down at all. They would pass through Clara and kill Malvern. All she had to do was pull the trigger.
Everybody was expendable. She’d promised herself that. When the plan had included sacrificing her own life, she hadn’t blinked at the thought.
“Laura,” Clara said.
“Don’t,” Caxton told her. “Don’t make this hard, don’t say—”
“Do it.”
Caxton stared at the other woman. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard.
“It’s worth it,” Clara told her. “If you don’t take the shot right now, she’ll kill us both! Just do it.”
“Child,” Malvern howled, “do ye even know what ye say? Do ye?”
Caxton brought the shotgun up again. Adjusted her aim. She just had to pull the trigger. She just had to shoot.
“No,” Malvern said. “No! Ye can’t! Ye can’t do it!”
Caxton steadied her hands. She wiggled her trigger finger to limber it up.
Then she lowered the shotgun. “You’re right. I can’t.”
Malvern started to laugh. She didn’t get very far, though. Holding on to Clara with only one arm meant she couldn’t control what Clara did with her hands. Without any warning at all, Clara grabbed the carbine hanging around her neck and fired off her entire clip. Not into Malvern’s body, of course—that would have been a waste of ammunition. Instead she pointed the barrel straight up and fired into the ceiling.
The quartz crystals up there were fragile at the best of times. They couldn’t take that kind of abuse. Chunks of rock crystal fell like rain. Stalactites fell like spears, dropping right on Clara’s head. Clara’s head, and Malvern’s.
The vampire panicked and let go of her. Malvern sprinted away from the falling rocks, even as Clara was buried under a pile of blue crystals. Malvern started to laugh again as she danced free. “Did ye think I’d be crushed by a little rock, dearie?” she demanded. “Did ye think—”
Malvern stopped talking abruptly. She must have felt Caxton’s presence directly behind her.
Caxton placed the barrel of the shotgun up against Malvern’s back, just to the left of her spine. And fired.
[ 2008 ]
“No,” Justinia howled. “No!”
She felt each individual fang tunnel through her body. She felt them gouging out deep tracks as they plunged through her flesh, felt them tearing at her, ripping her apart. When they reached her heart she started to scream.
“No! No! No! No! It isn’t fair! Ye’ve rigged the deck! Ye cheated!”
That was how the game was played, though. She had made every trick she could of the trumps in her hand, and she had laid them down. Laura had just had better cards.
“’Tis not possible! It’s a cheat!” Justinia screamed as she fell to the ground, her fist beating on the floor, her feet kicking at the unyielding rock. She could see nothing with her remaining eye. Everything had gone black. She could feel Laura behind her, though. She could feel Laura moving back there.
Every gambler must know that a bad hand is coming. Every card-player dreads it, but sometimes the cards are worthless. Sometimes luck frowns.
Justinia couldn’t accept it, even as the last of her life drained away. Even as she lay dying.
“No,” she whimpered. “No. No. No.”
“Shut up, you old hag,” Caxton said, and then stamped on Justinia’s head until everything went away, until it was over. All over.
60.
Clara had never hurt so much in her life.
She’d broken bones before. She’d been stabbed, and shocked, and hurt plenty of other ways. But she’d never had a mountain fall on her back before. Most of her was buried under the blue crystals, which weren’t heavy on their own but added up to quite a weight. She did not want to move. She didn’t want to even breathe deeply.
She was absolutely certain she had broken ribs, and probably a broken leg and a broken arm, too. The rocks had come down hard.
But—and here was the kicker—she was still alive.
Caxton hadn’t shot her. Laura had refused to kill her, even if it meant killing the vampire. She had been forced, in the most horrible way possible, to choose between Clara and Malvern. And she’d made the choice.
And Malvern was still dead.
“Laura,” she said. “Laura, honey. Please. I need help.”
The other woman didn’t respond. She just stood there, barely visible in the low light. Standing, holding her shotgun, not moving at all. Like she couldn’t believe what she’d done. Like she didn’t know what to do next.
“Come on, Laura. I’m all banged up,” Clara said.
Nothing.
In the end she had to free herself. It wasn’t easy. She used her probably-not-broken arm to move the rocks away, one handful at a time. It took forever. When she was finally free, though, she found one nice little surprise. Her leg wasn’t broken. It was just really, really badly sprained. If it meant life or death, she could probably even walk on it.
Not that she wanted
to try. She crawled over toward Laura and grabbed her ankle. The fearless vampire hunter barely flinched.
“Laura, snap out of it!” Clara said.
Laura turned to look around as if she wasn’t sure who was talking to her. Eventually she looked down. She threw the shotgun behind her and then reached down to help Clara up to her feet. Clara hopped around a bit, leaning on Laura, until she got the hang of not falling down and crippling herself. It took a lot of pain, and a lot of trial and error.
“She’s still dead,” Laura said.
It was the first thing she’d said since Malvern died.
“What?” Clara asked.
“I keep expecting her to come back to life. To jump up and attack us. That seems like something she might do.”
Clara looked down at Malvern’s corpse. Corpse was definitely the word. Laura’s boots had done a number on Malvern’s head, but the real damage was in her chest. The vampire teeth had carved a hole right through the body. There were a few black shreds of Malvern’s heart left, but they weren’t moving. That was how you killed a vampire. They couldn’t survive without their hearts. Anything else, maybe, but they needed their hearts.
“I promise you,” Clara said, “she’s not coming back.”
Then she held her breath, just in case she was wrong. But the corpse just lay there, completely inert.
Laura didn’t say anything in response.
“Come on. We have to get out of here,” Clara said. Even knowing it was a lot easier said than done.
Clara grabbed the flashlight. Then she hopped—with Laura’s help—back toward the entrance to the cave. It turned out that Urie Polder’s spell had no effect when you tried to leave the cave. For the first time Clara saw how narrow the creek really was, and how wide the tunnel that she’d thought she would never get through. When they reached the outermost chamber, though, she saw that the wall of rocks was still there, still blocking the way. Dust still hung in the air from the explosion. It felt like that had been hours ago, but in fact only a few dozen minutes had passed.
“Jesus, what are we going to do?” Clara asked.
Laura had no answer. Of course, Laura had never intended to leave the caves. She had wanted to make sure Malvern couldn’t leave, either. The cave was sealed off.
Clara wondered how long the air inside would last. Probably best not to think about that too much.
She tried pulling at the rocks that blocked the entrance, but most of them were far too big for her to lift. She figured maybe she would rest a minute and then try again, as hopeless as it might be. What else was she going to do?
So she sat down on a big rock and closed her eyes and tried to rest.
Laura interrupted this attempt by talking. “I guess you hate me now,” she said.
“I’d have good reason,” Clara told her, opening her eyes.
Laura nodded.
“You’ve been a total asshole for what, two years now? It would take a lot to make me trust you again. You understand that, right?”
“Yes.”
Clara nodded. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and the pain in her arm especially was beginning to announce itself. She really wished she had some aspirin. Or a rock drill, for that matter. “I don’t know if we can ever be like we were before. Not that we even ever had a chance to be what—what I wanted us to be. I just don’t know what I feel for you now. I’m not being unreasonable, am I?”
“No.”
Clara gritted her teeth. Breathing was starting to hurt. She was probably going to die here, in pain, and all she could think to do was give Laura a hard time.
Screw it.
“You could have shot me back there. You probably should have.”
Laura looked at her with empty eyes.
“There’s still something human in you. The vampires didn’t take it all,” Clara pointed out. “You should have shot me, but you didn’t. You hesitated. We both might have been killed because of that hesitation.”
“I’m … sorry,” Laura said.
“No! That’s not the point,” Clara insisted. “The point is, when you had to choose, when you had to make the sacrifice—you made the human choice. You aren’t dead inside. Not entirely.”
She got up—carefully—and hobbled over to where Laura stood, just staring at the rock wall in front of her. “Come here,” she said when Laura didn’t seem to take the hint. “Jesus, come here and kiss me.”
Laura’s eyes went wide. But she bent down and kissed Clara, a gentle peck on the lips.
“That was very chaste of you,” Clara said. Then she grabbed Laura around the neck and stuck her tongue in Laura’s mouth.
Laura pulled back a little. “You don’t … have to do that, just to cheer me up.”
“Maybe I need cheering up,” Clara replied. “And anyway, I told you once. I think vampire hunters are sexy.”
“I’m not.” Laura shook her head. “I’m not a vampire hunter anymore.”
“Cool. So what are you going to do next?”
Laura had no answer for that. Clara hobbled back to her rock and sat back down. “Is it getting hot in here, or am I just about to pass out and die from my injuries?” she asked.
It was definitely getting hotter. Eventually the rocks in front of them started to glow with heat. They moved farther back down the tunnel, having no idea what was happening. After a while they had to climb up on fallen rocks because molten stone started pouring from the wall that sealed the cave mouth.
Then something gave way, the rocks sagged, and fresh air blew in through a hole in the rock. The pale face of Patience Polder looked in at them.
Laura looked confused. “How?” she asked.
“An old spell my father taught me,” Patience explained.
“But … why? I told you to leave us in here. I told you I was going to die in here, with her,” Laura insisted.
“You told me many things, Miss Caxton. But you always seem to forget I can see the future. I knew exactly how this would end. Now, step this way, please. And be careful—the rocks here are still hot enough to burn you.”
[ EPILOGUE: 2012 ]
In the Polder house, Patience stood on a stool to wind the ancient grandfather clock in the front entrance hall.
“Do you know what happens if it stops?” Laura asked.
“I do,” Patience said. Her face darkened for a moment. “But it won’t stop, not in our lifetimes. I’ll always be quite careful to wind it every day, until I am old and quite frail. And then I will have children to do it for me.”
Laura shuddered a little. Even now, after so many years, Patience Polder still kind of freaked her out.
The girl always dressed in black now. She had traded her white pinafores and modest bonnets for the black shapeless gowns her mother Vesta had always worn. It didn’t seem right, her wearing black, at least not this day. But Laura didn’t question Patience’s decisions.
Laura was wearing baggy pants, herself, to cover the electronic monitoring anklet on her leg. It would be another six months, even with good behavior, before it could be removed. It was a hassle, but it definitely beat going back to prison. She also wore a man’s white dress shirt, a cheerful tie, and a black frock coat. She had a sprig of baby’s breath pinned to her lapel.
So maybe she shouldn’t be the one to criticize other people’s fashion choices, she thought. The outfit had seemed appropriate to her for her role in the day’s events, even though most of the Hollow’s inhabitants would have preferred her to wear a dress. Laura Caxton didn’t wear a lot of dresses.
Maybe she would wear one to her own wedding.
She took Patience down the long path to the Hollow while a jug band played “Here Comes the Bride.” She took Patience’s arm for the last stretch. Nineteen years old now and a good bit taller than she used to be, Patience didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to hold on. The two of them marched with a stately gait into the clearing, and Laura saw how well the witchbillies had rebuilt. There was no sign anymore of the fires
or the battle that had taken place there, except for a scar in the trees on the opposite ridge where the helicopter had crashed. Eventually even that would fade.
The witchbillies had all turned out for the wedding, dressed in their humble clothing. There were fewer of them than there used to be, but still enough to make a decent crowd. They stood and cheered as Patience came among them. The girl did not acknowledge the racket.
At the altar, Simon Arkeley stood waiting. He still had an ace bandage around one wrist. When Malvern threw him against a tree on that fateful night, he should have died. He broke most of the bones in his body, punctured a lung, and completely crushed his gallbladder. Patience had nursed him back to health, staying with him night and day in the hospital and then bringing him back to the house on the ridge to convalesce once his health insurance ran out. At first he had rejected her presence, losing his cool every time he saw her, having flashbacks every time he thought about what had happened.
She had started to heal his soul, as well as his body. In time he’d grown quite dependent on her. Not the best way to start a relationship, maybe.
When he saw her coming toward him at the altar, though, he wept. Big gooey tears. It was one of the sweetest things Laura Caxton had ever seen, and she felt a tear of her own break free from her eye and roll down her cheek.
The rings the happy couple exchanged were old, dull gold. Laura had seen them before, on the fingers of Vesta Polder. The tuxedo Simon wore didn’t fit him—it was huge across his shoulders and too short in the sleeves. It had belonged to Jameson Arkeley, though Laura still couldn’t believe Jameson had ever worn it.
The ceremony was short and formal. One of the witchbillies officiated. When the vows had been accepted, he said, “In the name of the earth, the sun, and the stars, I pronounce you man and wife.”
They did not kiss. That wouldn’t have been humble. Yet when they walked back up the aisle together and headed for the house, everyone jeered and made crude jokes about exactly what the two of them would get up to once they were behind locked doors.
32 Fangs: Laura Caxton Vampire Series: Book 5 Page 33