A plan was already forming. Show up down there, pretend to be another refugee, infiltrate their ranks, wait till the time was right, till they were off guard, then blow them all away.
"Want me to go down and check it out?"
Franco shook his head. "No. I need you here. I want you to gather your men from inside and outside the city and concentrate them around this building. I'm going to organize a counter strike and I don't want any interruptions. By next week I'll have gathered a horde of ferals to set loose down there. No quarter, no survivors. Then I'm going to incinerate the entire area. The flames will be visible for miles. Not one house or church or synagogue will be left standing. The rest of the living will hear and understand the consequences of resistance."
"I don't think pulling in your perimeter is such a good idea. That's like your early-warning system. You don't want—"
"What I don't want is to debate it. I did not bring you up here for a discussion. I'm telling you what to do. Now do it!"
Barrett resisted a hot retort. He held up his hands and said, "You're the boss."
As he turned and walked out, he thought, But you're an asshole.
He didn't care what Franco said, he wasn't going to pull in all the outriders. His ass was on the line here too, and if a caravan full of vampire hunters was headed this way, he wanted to know about it before they reached Fifth Avenue.
Because invariably vampire hunters were cowboy hunters too.
- 12 -
LACEY . . .
Feeling tight and on edge, Lacey sat straight and tall in the passenger seat, scanning the highway ahead and twisting to check out behind as they sped north along Route 35. Her right hand rested on the .45 semiautomatic cradled in her lap.
They'd left before dawn with Carole at the wheel. The Parkway route had been considered, but rejected. It was a wider road, but offered fewer options should they run into any Vichy. Route 35 was local, but it wasn't as if they had to worry about traffic lights or anything, and it allowed them to turn off on an instant's notice. That was good; the sun was rising into a cloudless sky, which was not so good. Lacey would have preferred a cloudy, rainy day. Better yet, foggy. Anything to cut the visibility.
As she spotted a sign that said HAZLET she felt the Fairlane surge forward. Joe—apparently he'd played around with cars as a teen—had identified this one as a '57 Fairlane; he'd checked the engine before they'd left and proclaimed it "hot," mentioning a four-barrel carburetor and other car talk she couldn't follow. She leaned left to catch a look at the speedometer.
"Ninety?" she said.
Carole nodded. She was dressed in some hideous mauve nylon warm-up she'd found last night in a neighboring house. "The road is straight and level here, and the sooner we get there, the better."
"I'll drink to that."
Carole nodded. "I don't know much about cars, but this one handles beautifully."
They merged with Route 9 and headed over a tall bridge. After that it was decision time.
"Turnpike or stay on 9?" Carole said.
Tough question. Lacey did not want to run into any Vichy.
"Let's think about that," Lacey said. "The closer we get to the city, the thicker the Vichy will be. But if I were a Vichy, the last place I'd look for someone traveling would be the Turnpike. It's too open. So I'd concentrate on the back roads."
"You're assuming they think that far ahead. The ones I've met so far haven't been too bright."
"But Joe said they were pretty well organized in the city. Someone with brains is probably calling the shots. I vote Turnpike."
Carole took a deep breath. "All right. Turnpike it is."
They followed the green-and-white signs and got on the New Jersey Turnpike North at Exit 11. They kept to the outer lanes.
As they roared along, Lacey felt herself starting to cook in the sunlight pouring through her side window. She rolled it down a few inches; that helped for a while, but soon she was perspiring.
She was wearing plaid cotton comfy pants and a red V-neck sweater over an extra-large T-shirt she'd found—it came from some restaurant called Pete and Elda's and apparently was a prize for eating a whole large pizza. Eventually she removed the sweater.
"If it gets much warmer we'll have to put the top down."
"I don't think that would be wise."
"Why not? Afraid of developing skin cancer in twenty years?"
Gallows humor. Even Carole smiled—a rare event these days.
Lacey pulled the T-shirt away from her skin and caught a whiff of herself.
"Damn, do I ever need a shower!"
She'd tried to bathe in the ocean but it was freezing.
"Wouldn't you love to be able to take a bath?" Carole said. "I'd give almost anything for one."
"Me too." Lacey decided Carole's cage was due for a gentle rattle. "You know, I wish I believed in the soul. I'd trade mine for one good hot shower."
"Don't talk like that," Carole said.
"It's true."
She glanced at Lacey. "You'd sell your soul that cheaply?"
"We're talking hypothetically here, and no, I wouldn't sell it that cheaply. I'd want at least three hot showers—long ones.
Carole looked as if she were about to reply when she glanced in the rearview mirror. Her expression tightened.
"Oh, no."
Lacey turned and looked through the convertible's plastic rear window. Two longhaired men on motorcycles had just roared out of a rest stop and were closing in on them. They wore dirty cutaway denim jackets and brandished pistols.
Vichy.
"Damn. Sorry. I guess I made the wrong call."
She reached down to the postal bag on the floor by the back seat—next to their stock of mylar napalm balloons and the canister of chemicals Carole had picked up from the town's water treatment plant—and came up with a sawed-off ten-gauge shotgun.
"Well, I was hoping this wouldn't happen, but at least we're prepared."
One of their pursuers raised a pistol and fired a round over the top of the Fairlane.
"A warning shot across our bow," Lacey said. She worked the shotgun's pump to chamber a shell. "Let's see how they like—"
Carole grabbed her arm. "Dear God, I just thought of something! What if they shoot into the trunk?"
"Joe can handle a bullet or two, as we've already seen."
Her grip tightened. "I'm not worried about the bullets so much as the holes they'll make. The sunlight will come through and—"
"Shit!" Three good minds planning this trip and not one of them had thought of that.
Another shot—this one whined past Lacey's open window. She stuck her head out and waved her empty hand. The biker on the left grinned and pointed toward the shoulder.
Lacey pulled back inside. "Pull over. But take your time. And when you think you're going slow enough, start putting the top down.
Carole looked at her. "Top down? Wh—?"
"Can't explain now. And speaking of top down ..." She began pulling off her T-shirt.
"Lacey!"
"Just trust me."
She'd given up bras long ago. As the car decelerated, she released the roof catches and tucked the .45 into the postal bag. Then she climbed into the rear. She laid the shotgun in the sling between the back seat and the roof compartment.
She began slipping out of her pants. She still liked to wear panties but she removed those too.
The roof started to rise. The wind swirling around her body felt good as she knelt on the back seat, gearing herself up for what was to come. One of the Vichy, pistol at the ready, pulled his bike up along the driver side and looked in, probably checking out the number of occupants. When he saw Lacey his eyes went wide and he let out a whoop.
As he dropped back, Lacey said, "As soon as we stop, get out of the car and start yelling at me to put my clothes on."