was truly a cage, open to the shaft. It was a killing box if someone could get above us.
I put Smith on the lever to drive the elevator. He'd driven it last time and hadn't crashed us. I tucked my AR to my shoulder, then snugged my cheek to it and let out a breath, so that I was still as I pointed the barrel upward through the metalwork.
"Why are you pointing up?" Stevens asked.
I kept my attention on the top of the shaft as I answered him, "Some vampires can fly."
"I thought that was just movie shit," he said.
"Not just movie shit," I said. I let my eyes relax, searching the darkness above us for movement, just movement, because there shouldn't have been any.
"Moving," Smith said.
I flexed my knees a little, steadied myself, and kept watching the darkness above us. "Go," I said.
The elevator shuddered to life. It was like trying to get your sea legs, and then it smoothed out, and we started down.
"Most people don't look up," Blondie asked.
"I'm not most people," I said softly; my attention was all on the darkness as it fell away from us. So far, the only movement was us, and the cables. I forced myself not to stare at the cables, but to keep my vision soft and not choose any one thing to look at, like you look for animals in the woods when you're hunting. You don't look for deer, you look for movement at first; once you have movement then you let your brain figure out what made the movement and if there's a shape to go with it. It was actually harder than it sounded to not "look" at any one thing, but to keep your eyes looking for things that weren't there when there was so much solid stuff to look at. The eyes want to look at something; the brain wants certainty, not shadows.
"Almost there, Anita," Smith said.
I braced for it, and the elevator stopped with another shudder, and a bump. I swayed - we all did - and bumped into Blondie. The moment I touched him, I felt his fear. He'd been shielding like a son of a bitch, so close to me, but touching makes all the vampire mind tricks stronger, and I mean my vampire mind tricks, not his. I heard the doors opening; Smith was closer, so he had probably been the one to open them, but I didn't look at him, I looked at Blondie.
We had a moment of meeting each other's eyes. Smith and Urlrich were ushering the vampires in front out of the elevator. "You're afraid," I said softly.
"I'm in police custody for murder; shouldn't I be afraid?" he asked, but his eyes were too wide, his lips parted. If he'd been human his breathing would have been fast, his heart racing. He'd been dead for twenty years; he shouldn't have been showing this many signs of stress, unless he was distracting me from something else?
I looked past him and caught a glimpse of the grandmother vamp, as Smith and Urlrich and another uniform led her out. I looked back at Blondie. "Don't do anything stupid," I said.
"Who are you talking to?" Stevens asked.
We all moved forward, sort of herding the vampires in front of us. "Him," I said.
Blondie smiled. I didn't like the smile, at all.
I grabbed him by the arm and hurried him out of the elevator to catch up with the others, but shackles mean you have to go slow. I didn't want to leave Stevens alone with the last of the vamps in the elevator, but... I had a bad feeling.
We got out into the last bit of the warehouse, as Smith and others opened the main doors and started easing the chained vampires out into the thicker darkness outside. They were outside; only Urlrich was left in the doorway. Stevens moved forward with the last of them. I came at the rear, with Blondie going even slower than he needed to be ahead of me.
The grandmother looked back. I looked into her eyes, and I saw it, saw what she was about to do, but I was yards away from her, from the door. I met her frightened eyes, watched her gather her courage. Urlrich had to catch a vampire that fell in his shackles; he helped them out the door, and it was just Stevens and me with the last few. He was closer than I was.