He wrinkled his nose at me, but shrugged. “You know how to reload, right?”

“Yes.” I was mildly insulted. “What about me makes me look like I don’t know how to reload a gun?”

He dropped some speed-loaders into the tub along with the Glock and then passed it to me. He pointed to a doorway. “Go in there and get yourself a holster.”

The other room had what I guess you’d call shooting accessories. I found an outside-the-waistband holster that looked pretty idiot-proof and carried it back into the other room, still in its package, which I would leave in the truck. Wyatt might not be worried about fingerprints, but I was.

When I got back, Wyatt had removed his duster and was slinging a second rifle across his body on a strap. He had set out boxes of ammunition on the counter. “You know, I saw this scene in The Matrix,” I remarked. “It didn’t end well for Neo.”

He grunted. “Better to have them and not need them and all that. You sure you just want the one?”

I looked at the Glock in the holster, hating how crude and violent it looked. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

He looked at Cliff. “You good?”

Cliff gave the wall of historical guns a longing glance, but all he said was, “I’m good.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Then let’s go kill some celebrities.”

Chapter 29

We drove to a gas station at the edge of town, where Wyatt did a loop of the parking lot to check for video cameras, and then parked his truck at the very back of the lot, behind the building. The two men got out and leaned against the truck, so I followed suit.

With the sun down, the weather was cooling off quickly, and I probably would have been freezing if I wasn’t wearing so many layers. Now I was glad I’d had to pull on a long-sleeved shirt over everything else.

A few minutes later, Laurel pulled up in an actual Range Rover.

Cliff let out a low whistle. “Nice ride,” he said.

Laurel climbed out, rolling her eyes a little in embarrassment. She was wearing jeans and a dark green tee shirt, the first time I’d seen her in clothes that I would actually wear. Her chin-length hair was pulled into a short ponytail, and her only jewelry was the same metal wave necklace she’d been wearing all weekend. She looked nervous, and a little excited, like she’d just been called up to the major leagues. Or maybe to the Avengers. “Yeah, well, Wyatt said we’d need to go off-road, so I borrowed this from my father-in-law. It would be best if we didn’t get any bullet holes in it. What happened to you?” she asked me, gesturing at my face.

“Oh.” I touched my cheekbone, and instantly regretted it. I’d taken four Advil, enough that I didn’t have to think about the bruise as long as I didn’t move my face around a lot. “You should see the other guy’s dead body. Did Juliet and the others get going?”

“Yes.” She looked pained. “Juliet is frantic with worry, so Bethany is driving Cliff’s vehicle. I take it the car accident was your handiwork?”

“Yes . . . but Jack is completely fine,” I promised. “He was just pressed. They’re in for a few hours of worry, and some insurance paperwork.” I tried to make it sound like no big deal, but the guilt still lanced through me. I had gotten them involved.

Pushing the thought aside, I said to Cliff and Laurel, “Can we get in your fancy car for a minute? Wyatt can show you the map.”

Wyatt and I got in the back seats of the Range Rover, and the other two climbed into the front. Wyatt had drawn a little map on Venetian stationery, and after a moment of squinting around he located an overhead light and switched it on.

“This is the boardinghouse, here,” he said, tapping at a long rectangle at the bottom of the sheet. “Right behind it and to the left, there’s a dirt path that leads to some scrubby forest. If you steer right, however, it leads you into the canyon. If I were planning to kill vampires, I’d tell them there’s gonna be an outdoor party back there. Might even set it up with some tables and lights and things. When the shooting starts, there will be nowhere for them to go.”

“Okay . . .” Laurel said.

“We want you guys down the other path, near the scrubby forest,” I told Cliff. “You’re gonna have to come in from the road, work your way around.”

Cliff nodded. “I can do that,” he said, looking relaxed for maybe the first time since I’d met him. “I’ve got GPS, and this beast should be able to go just about anywhere.” He gave the dashboard a fond pat.

“Where will the two of you be?” Laurel asked.

Wyatt tapped a spot on the map again. “To the right of both paths, there are the remains of an old outbuilding. As far as I remember, there are only three walls still standing, but that should be enough to give us cover until the Holmwoods get close. We wait until they’re heading out back, and we ambush them.”

Our best chance, Lex had pointed out, would be to go to Erson Station way ahead of the Holmwoods, while they were still busy with the nine thirty Demeter show. We would find our hiding place and wait for Arthur and Lucy to appear, and then I would extend my radius so Wyatt could shoot them. We still didn’t know how many vampires were working for them, but with the two leaders dead, I didn’t think anyone would try to retaliate. They were the engine driving this whole thing.

As for Jameson, his ideology may have been in line with the Holmwoods’, but I couldn’t see him being devastated by their deaths. And if they were gone, hopefully I could convince him to get out of here, away from Malcolm and the skinners. If he didn’t want to come to LA and beg for Dashiell’s forgiveness, maybe I could send him to stay with one of the other nulls I knew of, in Europe or Japan.

But that was a problem for Future Scarlett. For now, we would go in, wait for Arthur and Lucy to show up, and kill them immediately.

Which reminded me of something. I gave Wyatt a sidelong glance. “Are you gonna need to do the whole monologue on why they need to die, blah blah vengeance, or can we just shoot them?”

He scoffed. “I just need them dead. I don’t need to brag about it beforehand like it’s some damn movie.”

“How are we going to be able to see them?” Laurel asked, looking at the map. “You said this place is out in the middle of nowhere, right?”

We all looked at Wyatt. “Are there electric lights?” Cliff asked.

“I don’t know. But I would assume so, if they’ve got a null running around.”

That made sense. If Jameson was making vampires intermittently human again, they would need to be able to see. “Besides,” Wyatt added, “I know the Holmwoods’ voices well enough. I’ll be able to recognize them. The only thing I’m not sure about,” he went on, “is the distance between the path and the ruins. We need to keep you far enough away that you won’t affect anyone walking by on the path, but stay close enough to see and hear them as they’re going by.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I gave him a look and suppressed my radius. Wyatt was about three feet away from me in the big SUV, but I managed to drop it down to about two feet.

As he turned back into a vampire, his eyes widened, and—ironically—a flush of life seemed to overtake him, making him somehow more attractive and dangerous-looking. No, I can’t really explain how this works. Maybe it’s a pheromone thing, or maybe part of their magic creates some kind of physical illusion, like a filter in Photoshop. The bottom line is that vampires be hot.

“Damn, woman,” he marveled, shaking his head. “I’ve only met you and that Jameson fella, but I didn’t know you all could do that. Can you hold it?”

“For a little while, but it makes it hard to concentrate,” I told him. “I don’t think I could suppress it while I fight, for example, or while holding a really intense conversation. But if we’re sitting and waiting, yeah, I can keep it small for maybe a couple of hours. And I can expand it, too.”

I needed to conserve energy, so I released my radius, letting it encompass Wyatt again. He stiffened for a second, but his body hadn’t had enough time to forget how to breathe, so he adjusted quickly. “All right, that could be useful. How far can you go?”