Serenity, Nevada (13/16)
13.
Champagne circulated on trays. Salsa buffet situated to one side, beer and drinks at the free bar, and a dessert buffet now unveiled and ready to serve. The atrium of Serenity City Hall had been hung with gold foil streamers and balloons, making it appear gilded and old-fashioned instead of just old, and the guests were arriving in groups now, shedding wraps and coats at the door. Perfect.
Always excepting the presence of the Sheriff, of course.
Inara tuned back in to Mal’s rant after nodding to Matteo across the room to start cutting the cake.
“…not safe. Not with that group of bikers still on the loose, and I know you can’t cancel it now, but can’t you relocate it to your house? Place is damn well big enough to hold all these people.”
Inara turned to give Mal a curved smile of derision. “You’re joking.”
“No! I haven’t been joking about anything for the last five minutes, ‘Nara!” Mal appeared genuinely upset, and Inara felt a tiny sliver of remorse for making the man’s job more difficult. Terrence’s murder and the recent upsets at the local bars were taxing his already limited resources and patience, it seemed. Not that those reserves were ever bountiful to begin with. “All these nice donors and rich folk, wouldn’t they be more comfortable out at your ranch instead of here? C’mon!”
“While they would undoubtedly appreciate the surroundings more, it’s far too late, and the City Hall is more appropriate, given the fundraiser’s goal to raise money for a public hospital, and the public employees who are also in attendance,” Inara said, nodding at Simon as he walked in, then smiling as she saw the look on Kaylee’s face by the buffet. “This is for the improvement of Serenity, not a business deal. I would have thought you’d be pleased that I wasn’t attempting a ‘fast one’ about the resort development.”
“Damnit, Inara.” The note of defeat in Mal’s voice was new, and Inara stopped checking on the flower arrangements to focus on him, noting the dark circles under his eyes for the first time. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You actually believe there’s a risk that a biker gang will attack City Hall?” Inara managed to keep the laughter out of her voice with an effort. “Mal. Really. They wouldn’t dare. There’s far too many people here.”
Mal’s jaw set as he glared around the main Hall. The man needed a vacation. Exasperating and high-handed as he was, he genuinely cared about doing his job and protecting the public. Perhaps she’d arrange a voucher for him at a nice hotel in Las Vegas after this weekend?
As she followed Mal’s gaze, Inara realized Zoe was walking the upper level with her hand on her gun. And Deputy Jayne Cobb was at the door, checking those coming in, one hand clutching an odd short wooden knife.
“You’re genuinely worried.” She looked around the room, then back at Mal. “What do you know that I don’t?”
And there was his tell, that muscle-twitch that she’d cataloged ages ago. Oh, this was bad. Ice formed in her stomach. “Mal.”
“We’ll do everything we can, but I truly most sincerely wish you’d cancel this. Even now, Inara.” His voice dropped. “It’s not too late-“
He stopped talking, his eyes tracking a server by the salsa buffet. “Oh, crap. I take that back. Jayne. Zoe? We got trouble, six o’clock,” he said, speaking into his shoulder mike.
Inara stared at the waiter, trying to pick up on what Mal had noticed. “I don’t know him. Matteo arranged the help-“ But Matteo was moving forward, frowning, and now gesturing at the interloper, looking angry at some mistake the man had made.
“Thank god for shiny punch bowls, maybe we can get him out of here-“ Mal was already moving across the room, and Jayne was hurrying away from the door to join him. Inara rearranged her stole, feeling nervous and then giving a perfect smile as the mayor of Persephone came up to the staircase to greet her with his wife.
“Sheridan, Emily, so glad you could-“
An almighty clang of the punch bowl hitting the ground signaled the beginning of the fight and the end of her perfect evening to benefit the new hospital.
The scream of brakes and the roar of a huge truck engine outside signaled something else.
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Book’s CB radio had picked up the chatter. Not the police; the monsters.
“You up there, Mitch?”
“Don’t call me that. You know I got a code name! We’re heading for the goal. Lyle says to join us after you’ve finished off at the SuperPumper.”
“Yes sir, ‘Wolverine’.” The snort was audible through the static. “His sweetie’s truck just left for the rendezvous. Takin’ out the exit to the highway, just like the plan.”
The SuperPumper was twelve miles from Book’s place at the edge of town. Book’s car Ruby (whom she knew he'd named for his best friend, though he’d never said) tore down the road to the exit as if it had wings. The back seat bristled with weapons, and River didn’t wait for Ruby to squeal to a stop before raising her bow, muscles moving smoothly, and loosing a shot at the first vamp she saw when they hit the parking lot: one who had the clerk pushed up against the outside wall, mouth already descending on his neck.
The high sodium lights bathed everything in an antique glow of neon and high-tech new plastic and glass. Monsters everywhere, pouring out of the back of a cargo truck parked across three spaces. That’s how they hid. They were moving all day. Safe in the dark. Darkened windows.
A puff of dust, and the vampire she’d shot was gone, letting go of Joey-the-night-clerk, who fell to the ground at the entrance to the SuperPumper mart, bleeding from a wound to his neck. Book pulled the car to a stop close to him, and ducked out to gather up the wounded (just like in ‘Nam, only he was never in ‘Nam, not if you check the records).
More monsters than she’d ever seen before: fourteen, no fifteen, fiddling with the pumps, pushing barricades across the road, turning startled then snarling faces to her. Yellow eyes, long fangs, ridges and claws, truckers and cowboys transformed into walking pestilence.
Protect the wounded.
Kill the monsters.
Stop them.
Twang went the bow again, and then she dove out of the car to spin at two monsters spilling gasoline everywhere. Kick, high-kick, punch one, spin the other, reach out with the stake Book had given her, stab-stab dead dead. Turn to the next assailant, no thought required, the moment here the action now.
Oz was shooting, twang twang, like a guitar string, music for monsters, one down, disappeared into dust, one wounded and snarling. The wounded one threw himself at Oz-
Stabbed himself on an upheld stake, stupid monsters, not like the one who’d damaged her, changed her, transformed her, years ago. Vermin. Stupid vermin. Slayers had been killing them forever, and forever they’d never learn. It wasn’t fair, or right, but it made sense to River that she’d be chosen to kill them, after a monster had chosen her. She always learned the fastest of anyone.
Book was calling to Oz, shooting a crossbow bolt at another vampire, gesturing to two motorists who’d been cornered by one of the pumps. Tourists, they looked like, nice people dragged out of their Honda Civic and beaten before they were going to be bitten. Now free to get into Ruby, hide, take shelter. But they were too scared, minds blanked out in fear and overload of adrenaline.
Oz jumped out of the car and ran to them, grabbing their arms, shepherding them the way Book shepherded Joey. Have to protect the sheep from the rabid blood-sucking rats.
Two more undead rats now more dead, she didn’t have to think, just move.
They were spilling more gasoline. Only six left now, between her efforts and Oz and Book’s, running away, stumbling and panicking in the middle of the gasoline, trying to get back to their truck. Flammable liquid, around flammable vampires. No sense. Nonsense. That wasn’t a tactic. That was…
Oh.
“They’re going to blow up the SuperPumper!” River screamed to Oz, dusting two more vampires as she ran toward him from across the parking lot.
Oz’s head jerked up just as one of the vampires ran up and sprayed him and the four other occupants of the car with gasoline. Then he held up a lighter, chortling.
Book slammed on the accelerator and went into reverse, grim-faced even at a distance, tires squealing as he pulled away from the mini-mart, trying to put distance between them and that flame.
River ran, stake out-
The vamp dropped the lighter. Unintentionally.
Dummy.
River swerved around the pool of gasoline and the screaming, burning pool of vampire quickly dissolving into fire, put on speed. Running so fast, watching the flame lick its way to the pumps, faster and faster, and then it followed the trail to Ruby, even as Book swerved the car around.
“Out out out out out!” River shouted.
Book dragged Joey out of the car, and Oz pushed the two customers out ahead of them, and all five dove into the ditch behind the parking lot as the flames reached Ruby and set her alight, a small roar of flame going up-
And behind her, River felt the shockwave and heat before she heard the much larger KA-BOOM!
She hit the asphalt hands-out, on her knees, and lay there gasping a moment.
“…River?”
“’mokay.” She rolled over to look up at Oz, and Reverend Book’s worried face. The gasoline smell on both of them almost made her gag.
The SuperPumper was in flames, crackling merrily, and the truck that the vampires had arrived in was a blackened mess, like the other cars in the parking lot, including Ruby. The explosion had ignited, spread, and charred everything within range within seconds, now burning itself out, blocking part of the road, but not all of it. That had been the plan. Isolate Serenity. Make it impossible to escape. Didn’t seem to matter now.
“They killed your car,” she told Book, near tears. “They killed Ruby.”
Book smiled weakly. “But we’re alive. And she can be resurrected.” His expression darkened. “Oh. Lord. Now how do we catch up to them?”
Oz shaded his eyes, looking down the main thoroughfare to Serenity, twelve miles away. “If the other trucks were full of vamps too-they were headed straight for downtown.”
Twelve miles. She could run that and get to their destination in twenty minutes. Exhausted, alone, without the element of surprise, even if she was an avatar of destruction. “I need to bend space. And time. And I have no wings.”
Book’s expression cleared. “You don’t need them.”