I ran out into the parking lot.
"Ni?a, don't go."
The voice stopped me at the edge of the parking lot. I looked back. Magnus had dragged himself out the door and onto the gravel. Ellie was burning white hot. Magnus's shirt and hair were burning.
I screamed, "Go back, you son of a bitch!" But the same voice that kept me pinned to the edge of the parking lot kept him coming out into the light.
The voice came again. "Come back to bed, Anita. You're tired. You must rest."
I was suddenly tired, so tired. I felt every cut, every bruise. She would make it all better. She would touch me with her cool hands and make it all better.
Magnus collapsed in the middle of the driveway, shrieking. The vampire was melting into him, burning him alive. Sweet Jesus.
He reached one hand out to me. He screamed, "Help me!" The vampire was melting into his flesh, eating it away.
I ran. I ran with Serephina's voice whispering in my ear: "Ni?a, Mother misses you."
Chapter 40
I flagged a car down on the highway. I was covered in dried blood, cut, scraped, bruised, and still an elderly couple picked me up. Who says there are no more good Samaritans? They wanted to take me to the police, and I let them.
The nice policemen took one look at me and asked if I needed an ambulance. I said no, and could they page Special Agent Bradford, and tell him it was Anita Blake.
They tried to get me to go to the hospital, but there was no time. It was mid-afternoon. We had to move before dark. I asked the police to send a two-man car to make sure that no one moved the coffins. I told them there might be a hurt man in the parking lot and if he was still there to call an ambulance, but under no circumstances go inside the place.
Everybody nodded and agreed with me. Most of the cops in the area had been through Serephina's house last night and today. The cops told me Kirkland had brought the cops back to the vampire's lair after they took me. It took me a second to realize that Kirkland was Larry. Which meant Serephina had kept her word and let them go. The relief at knowing for sure that Larry was alive made me weak-kneed, and I was wobbly enough as it was.
The cops had found over a dozen bodies buried in the basement of Serephina's house. She should have buried them in the woods. For all I knew, she'd raised their ghosts. I didn't know. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that we had a warrant of execution, and the cops were listening to me today.
They sat me in an interrogation room with a cup of black coffee, thick enough to walk on, and a blanket to wrap around me. I was shivering and couldn't seem to stop.
Bradford came in and sat down across from me. He stared at me with eyes that were just a little too wide. "The locals say you found the master vampire's lair."
I laughed, and it came out wrong, almost like a sob. "I wouldn't say I found Serephina's lair. More like I woke up in it." I raised the coffee to my mouth and had to stop in mid-motion. My hands were shaking so badly I was about to slosh coffee onto the table. I took a deep breath, blew it out, and concentrated on taking a drink of coffee. Just concentrated on the simple physical movement. It helped. I got coffee, and calmer at the same time.
"You need to go to the hospital," Bradford said.
"I need Serephina dead."
"We've got warrants for all of them. All the vampires involved. How do you want to do it?"
"Burn them out. Block off everything but the front door. If Magnus is inside, he'll come out."
"Magnus Bouvier?" he asked.
"Yeah." There was something about the way he said it that I didn't like.
"The cops found what's left of him in the parking lot. It looks like something melted the lower half of his body. Would you know anything about that?" He looked at me very steadily when he asked it.
I took another careful sip of coffee, and met his eyes without blinking. What was I supposed to say? "The vampires were controlling him. He was supposed to keep me in the bar until nightfall. Maybe they punished him for failing." What I'd done to Magnus and Ellie was enough to earn me a death sentence. I wasn't admitting that to the Feds.
"The vampires punished him?" He made it a question.
"Yeah."
He looked at me for a long time, then nodded and changed the subject. "Won't the vampires try to make a break when the fire starts?"
"Sunlight or fire," I said. "Just a choice of how well done you want your vampires to be." I finished the last of the coffee in my cup.