13 Bullets

"Enough!" Reyes shouted, from somewhere, from nowhere.

Everything stopped-time stopped, motion stopped. Caxton was all alone. The molten metal receded, draining away to reveal the mill floor once again. The iron still filled runnels in the floor, which provided some light, and the blast furnace still smoked and spat out great gusts of red sparks. But the heat became if not bearable at least survivable and the air thinned out until Caxton could breathe without pain. The metal pouring from the giant crucible slowed to a trickle and she climbed down her chain to stand on the mill's floor without being burned.

In one corner of the mill a trapdoor creaked open on rusty hinges. She walked toward the portal timidly, unsure of what was happening. She could see stairs leading downwards into darkness but nothing more.

On unsteady, tired feet, she stepped down onto the first riser. The stone step was cold against her bare foot, cold enough to make her toes curl. After spending so long in the conflagratory heat of the burning mill she'd forgotten what cold could really feel like. She took another step down and braced herself against the metal edge of the trap door. She was relatively certain that as soon as she descended far enough it would close after her with a tooth-loosening clang, or perhaps it would even snap shut when she was only a few steps down the stairs, closing like a mouse trap on her already-battered body. She wouldn't put anything past this nightmare.

"Laura, please, join me," someone said from down in the darkness. There was a lot of Central America in the voice, an accent she wasn't expecting. She took another step, and another. The trap didn't clang shut. Eventually she made out a little light filtering up from below, a little yellow light that guttered like a flame in a mild breeze.

She walked down further-and found that she knew this other room very well. A narrow vaulted space, the walls lined with shelves holding jars and boxes and rolled-up blankets. It was the same cellar storage area where she had first entered the mill. The place the half-deads had brought her in her casket. The offending piece of furniture was still there, its lid closed now. A candle in an antique holder stood at one end of the casket. Sitting on the other end was a man of average build and height. He wore a hooded sweatshirt (with the hood down) over an Oxford cloth white buttoned-down shirt. His skin was the color of walnut shells and he had a black roll of hair that looked carefully combed. He smiled at her and showed her a mouth of small, round teeth, very human teeth, but she knew this was Efrain Reyes. It was Reyes as he had appeared in life. Before he died and became a vampire.

"When the mill was in use they would store borax and lime down here. That's what you smell," he told her. He patted the casket lid next to him, offering her a place to sit.

Honestly she hadn't smelled anything. The smoke from the burning mill had scalded her nasal passages and left her unable to smell at all. She didn't correct him, just sat down next to him. There wasn't enough room on the casket to sit apart so she ended up touching him, hip to hip, arm to arm.

"I wanted to talk with you directly," he told her, once she was comfortable. "She advises against it." Caxton knew somehow he meant Malvern, that Justinia Malvern had made up the rules of this conversation. The information must have come through the part of Reyes inside Caxton's head. "This is all supposed to be done in silence. She even calls it the Silent Rite."

"You're in contact with her... right now?" Caxton asked.

Yes, she heard inside her mind, but he only shook his head. "I can't answer that."

It was as if he wasn't aware of what she'd heard. As if he didn't know that their connection ran both ways. "I can't tell you anything until you've accepted the curse."

"Then what do we have to talk about? Because I refuse to... to do what you ask," she told him. She could no more do that than she could say the word out loud.

"You'll have to kill me yourself."

Suicide, he thought, the word is suicide, but she can't say it. She'll do it though. It is inevitable; the curse drives them to it. She must be ready. "I'm not asking for anything. It has to be your own choice. You have to accept this thing to be one of us."

"I can't... I've seen Malvern, in her coffin..."

There was a rustle of silk behind her and Caxton tried to turn around but she moved so slowly. Someone stood behind her but no, there was nothing human back there. Finally she managed to turn enough to see that a woman had joined them. A female vampire, pressed up against the shelves as if she were holding on for dear life. She wore a long purple silk dress cut shockingly low in front but fluffed out below with an honest-to-God hoop skirt. A powdered grey wig perched high her bald head, concealing her pointed ears. She had a black satin eyepatch over one eye and clotted blood smeared around her lips.

It was Malvern. Justinia Malvern, as she must have looked when she was an active, well-fed vampire. An icon of strength and power. She didn't move, or smile, or speak. Her single eye studied Caxton without blinking. In that eye Caxton saw the truth that the strong appearance hid so well. Malvern was desperate. She was asking for help, and at the same time she was studying Caxton, trying to decide if she was worthy.

"She needs us, Laura. You can't imagine her suffering. We have to help her and to do that you need to become one of us. Your life is kind of pathetic, okay? I don't mean to be cruel." His voice changed as she spoke, the Central American accent coarsening, turning into a growl. Malvern vanished without warning, leaving nothing behind but a smell of blood that lingered in the air and slowly changed, almost fluidly, into the smell of baking manure.

Caxton didn't understand at first-then she slowly turned her head back to face him. The dream was over, and reality had returned. Nothing had changed, she was still sitting on the casket with him, the only light still came from the flickering candle. He wanted her to think she was still in the dream-otherwise, why the subtle transition? But where he had been human before and fully dressed now he wore only his sweat pants and his skin was whiter than soap flakes. She looked up and saw his bald head, his pointed ears. His mouth full of wicked teeth.

He had looked like an individual before, like a human being unique among all the others in the world. Now he looked just like the vampire she'd helped kill, the one Arkeley had destroyed with the jackhammer.

Congreve, she heard in her head. It was the name of the dead vampire. Reyes would never have volunteered as much, surely? Unless perhaps he didn't care anymore. If he was certain she was about to die, maybe.

"It's all up to you," he said, handing her something heavy and strangely shaped. She looked down, slowly, and saw that it was a handgun. Her own Beretta, in fact.

"She thought maybe you would understand. That maybe you'd be willing to help?

But this part's up to you. You lift that, and you put the barrel in your mouth."

Caxton frowned in confusion. Her hand lifted the weapon without any effort at all. Her muscles contracted to bring the pistol closer to her face. It would be harder, she knew, to put the gun down than to do as he said. She tried to call up the sense of oblivion she'd had in the dream. She tried to focus on how this one step would solve everything.

She wanted to please him. It startled her a little to realize it. She'd tried to please and impress every authority figure in her life-her father, her superiors in the Highway Patrol, Arkeley. Why not the vampire who had taken such control of her?

"Come on, Laura. I've got other things to do, okay?" He didn't touch her or the weapon. "Most people figure this out pretty quick. When I saw her in her coffin, I got it right away. I knew what she was offering, and I knew I wanted it. It's immortality, Laura, and it's contagious! What a wonderful thing! Why are you holding back?"

Caxton hadn't thought she was. She thought she was being good. The gun kept coming closer, inching through the air toward her lips. Her teeth opened up. Her tongue pushed her dry lips open.

Her will, and Reyes' will, were fused together. She could feel him inside her like a worm burrowing between the hemispheres of her brain. Justinia Malvern had done this to Reyes, she realized, with just one look, by catching his eye for just a moment. The old vampire had raped the electrician from across a room in the time it took him to install a light bulb. Now he was doing the same thing to her, using that same power. He had made Congreve and the other, the vampire who cut off his pointed ears daily. Reyes was an expert at this. How could she possibly hope to resist?

The handgun touched her lips. She felt the cold metal on her sensitive skin like an electric shock. Her eyes crossed as she looked down at the barrel. Just a few more inches. The weapon only had a few more inches to traverse and then she knew her finger would tighten on the trigger.

"Your mother did it. Your father smoked three packs a day, he understood,"

Reyes breathed. He was so close to her. He wasn't looking at her. "Your lover's well on her way. I did it without hesitation. It's not this hard."

Caxton's finger moved on the trigger. A tremor, a twitch.

Arkeley came down the stairs then, his feet making no sound on the risers. He came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She couldn't see him but she knew it was him. Just like in the burning mill. "You're not as fragile as you think," he told her. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. A nice, final thought to cap off her life.

You're not really here, she thought. But then she didn't understand-how could he be there, if she was wide awake? He'd appeared in her dream but this, his presence in real life, was quite impossible.

As soon as she thought it he disappeared. His hand left nothing but a little warmth on her shoulder. Her own hand suddenly felt very, very heavy and the gun fell away from her lips. It was still pointing at her flesh but the barrel rested on her chest, just to the left of her sternum. If she fired she would blow out her own heart.

"No," Reyes said, a huge noise in the little room. He moved fast, too fast for her to follow. The gun flew away from her, into a corner of the room and her hand ached as if it had been slapped. "No. No, no, no. Joder," he moaned, "how are you so stupid? I don't have time for this." He looked at her then and his bloody eyes were filled with rage and hatred. His arm swung out and she flew off the casket to land in a heap in the corner.