Caxton frowned. She knew about the Mütter Museum, of course. She’d been there on a class trip when she was a kid. It was the world’s largest collection of medical anomalies. Two-headed babies in jars, the skeleton of the world’s tallest man. Lots of skeletons, actually. She thought about the bones in the cave.
The vampires that hadn’t made it to the twenty-first century. “Hold on, Clara. Arkeley, what do they have there that would interest us?”
He shrugged, looking a little miffed at being interrupted. “As I was saying, my contact there got in touch with me recently. He’d turned up something in a storage room he knew I would want to see. They have the bones of a vampire in their collection. Bones which are dated to 1863.”
Caxton’s eyes went wide. “You think there’s a connection.”
“You don’t?” he asked. “I should go and take a look, anyway. It might tell us something about who we’re fighting.”
Caxton nodded eagerly. She was less concerned by who the vampire might be than by what he might do next, however. “Okay. Find out what you can. The most important thing for me right now is to catch the active one. I’ll head up to HQ and see what I can do about getting some people down here so we can start searching for this vampire’s lair.”
He left without another word. Caxton checked her pocket and found her car keys. Turning to Clara, she said, “You drove down here, right? You can take me back to where I left the Mazda and then—”
“Yeah,” Clara said, standing up. She threw her arms around Caxton, pressed her face into the crook of Caxton’s neck. “Anything I can do to help,” she said. “Just promise me you won’t get killed.”
Caxton hugged her back, hard, and promised. When she let go she saw the red bruises on Clara’s neck, however, and made a promise to herself.
The last time she fought vampires people had been hurt—people she cared about. That wasn’t going to happen again.
They went out into the hospital’s parking lot, where a stiff wind was whirling up great spirals of fallen orange leaves. Clara drove her back to the Mazda and left her there with one deep, meaningful kiss. She promised she would take care of the dogs.
“Don’t expect me home tonight.” Caxton didn’t plan on coming home until the vampire was destroyed.
“Keep me informed,” Clara insisted. Then she drove away.
Caxton watched the patrol cruiser go, watched the sweep of leaves it kicked up in its wake. Then she unlocked the Mazda and reached inside for the Beretta and its magazine, checked the action, and put the weapon in her coat pocket. Just having her familiar sidearm on her person made her feel better.
She wanted to get started right away, wanted to start liaising with the local cops and start an investigation folder. It wasn’t that easy, though. First she had to drive back to Harrisburg and beg her superiors at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to allow her to be reassigned and to give her some kind of jurisdiction for Gettysburg.
A thick layer of clouds lay over Route 15 as she hurried northward. She listened to the radio and tried not to think about much until she saw the aqueduct bridges of the state capital appear before her between two ridges. The dome of the capitol looked greenish under the overcast sky, but she was glad to see it. A few miles farther on, she pulled into the parking lot of the state police headquarters, a brick building with a big flag out front. She parked the Mazda and rushed inside to the lobby.
She had planned on speaking with her captain, but when she arrived she was told to go straight up to the Commissioner’s office. At his door she introduced herself to his assistant. She expected to be kept waiting while her superior finished whatever he might be working on at that moment, but instead she was just waved in.
“Trooper Caxton,” the Commissioner said, standing up from behind his desk. His office walls were lined with the antlers of twelve-point bucks, and there were antique rifles lined up behind his desk as if he wanted to be ready to shoot anyone who came through his door with bad news.
“Sir,” she said.
“Do you know why I asked you to come up here?” he inquired.
She licked her lips and began. “There’s evidence of a vampire pattern in Gettysburg,” she said. “I mean, there’s a vampire there. I’ve seen him.” She cursed herself for not having rehearsed this speech before.
She’d had plenty of time in the car. “I’d like to be assigned to special duty. If that’s alright.”
“Yes,” he said.
She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “Sir, I—”
“You want to be assigned special jurisdiction for this case. To be reassigned from your current duties.
I’m agreeing with you. That’s exactly what should happen now. And I’m not the only one.” His eyes twinkled. “The doughnut munchers have spoken. This morning the police chief of Gettysburg called and asked to speak with me personally. I listened to what was going on and then I promised whatever assistance Gettysburg required. Do you know what the chief asked for?”
“No, sir.”
“He asked for Laura Caxton, the famous vampire killer. The star of Teeth . They asked for you by name, Trooper.”
Her hands were shaking. Was it that easy? Could it be that easy? The Commissioner came out from behind his desk and squeezed her bicep, then started walking toward his office door. She stood still until she realized she was being dismissed, then rushed to follow him.
“Sir,” she said, “I want to thank—”
“Me? No need,” the Commissioner said, smiling widely. “Like I said, I’ve read the reports on your work on the Godwin investigation. You got yourself shot and two troopers had to risk their lives pulling you out of the action.” He smiled at her, but his eyes were already looking down at his desk. “I’d just as soon have you on special duty and away from the rest of my people.”
Caxton did then what she’d learned a long time before was the only suitable reaction to such a backhanded compliment. She put her heels together, saluted, then turned and walked out the door.
24.
We crowded into the covered wagon and found room for knees and elbows around the dial. For light we had a single candle, but he assured me that was enough. It was a few minutes past midnight and I was anxious to be unburdened of my bad news.
The telegrapher, though, took his time getting set up, and even with his machine in operation, was much delayed. Cursing and fussing, he turned the indicator back and forth on the face of his dial, which was inscribed with two rounds of letters and numbers, and some few commands such as WAIT and STOP. He could not seem to get a good signal out, for messages kept coming in. He assured me this was normal, and set back to his work, but again with little success. I produced a small bottle from inside my coat and offered it to him, and this did much for his disposition, but did not help his machine.
“It’s these new electro-magnetos, they’re s’posed to be better than an honest man’s telegraph key, but I don’t see it. No fluids or acids to burn me, no salts to keep straight, that’s fine and well.
But this type picks up too many ghosts.”
I must have raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “After every battle we get ’em. They crowd the wires, you see. Dead men breathing out their last.”
I watched in amazement as the indicator moved on the dial, of its own accord. The messages were picked out letter by letter so that even I could read them. The missives were never long or overly complex. M-O-T-H-E-R was the most common, and L-O-R-DJ-E-S-U-S, and S-A-V-E-M-Y-S-O-U-L and W-A-T-E-R. All the cries of the battlefield, tapped out in an invisible hand.