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Chapter 15

My vaun with silver shot, stakes, h crosses and holy water to drown a va in my bedroom closet I used to carry it in the trunk, al If I was caught carrying the vampire kit without a court order of execution on me, it was an automatic jail term The ne had kicked in only weeks before It was to keep certain overzealous executioners fro, "Gee, sorry" I, by the way, am not one of the overzealous Honest

Dolph had cut the sirens about alot dark and quiet The marked car behind us had followed our lead There was already onefor us The two officers were crouched beside the car, guns in hand

We all spilled out of the dark cars, guns out I felt like I&039;d been shanghaied into a Clint Eastwood movie I couldn&039;t see John Burke&039;s car Which meant John checked his beeper more than I did If the vampire was safely behind es immediately Please, just don&039;t let me have cost lives A for us duck-walked to Dolph and said, "Nothing&039;s eant"

Dolph nodded "Good Special forces will be here when they can get to it We&039;re on the list"

"What do you mean, we&039;re on the list?" I asked

Dolph looked at et here as soon as they can"

"We&039;re going to wait for theeant, we are supposed to wait for special forces when going into a preternatural situation," the uniforional Preternatural Investigation Team," he said

"You should have silver bullets," I said

"I&039;ve got a requisition in," Dolph said

"A requisition, that&039;s real helpful"

"You&039;re a civvie You get to wait outside So don&039;t bitch," he said

"I&039;al vampire executioner for the State of Missouri If I&039;d answeredit to irritate Bert, the va this You can&039;t leave me out of it It&039;s more my job than it is yours"

Dolph stared at me for a minute or two, then nodded very slowly

"You should have kept your et to wait in the car"

"I don&039;t want to wait in the car"

He just looked attowards the doors Zerbrowski followed I brought up the rear I was the police&039;s preternatural expert If things went badly tonight, I&039;d earn ht to the basement of the old St Louis City Hospital, even those who die in a different county There just aren&039;t that ues equipped to handle freshly risen vaot a special vault roo and crosses laid on the outside of the door There&039;s even a feeding tank to take the edge off that first blood lust Rats, rabbits, guinea pigs Just a snack to calm the newly risen

Under normal circumstances the man&039;s body would have been in the vampire room, and there would have been no problem, but I had promised them that he was safe I was their expert, the one they called to stake the dead If I said a body was safe, they believed

Chapter 16

St Louis City Hospital sat like a stubby brick giant in the middle of a combat zone Walk a few blocks south and you could see Tony Ainning ht from Broadway But here we could have been on the dark side of the moon If the round like shattered teeth

The hospital, like a lot of inner-city hospitals, had lost ue stayed open because they couldn&039;t afford to ned in the early 1900s when people still thought they could find a cure for vampirism Lock a vampire in the vault, watch it rise and try to "cure" it A lot of vamps cooperated because they wanted to be cured Dr Henry Mulligan had pioneered the search for a cure The prograan&039;s face

Sothe poor misunderstood vampire

But the vault room was still used for most vampire victims Mostly as a precaution, because these days when a vauide the newly risen to civilized vaotten about the varam that&039;d only been in effect a little over a month Would an older vampire be able to control an animalistic vampire, or would it take a master vampire to control it? I didn&039;t know I just didn&039;t know

Dolph had his gun out and ready Without silver-plated bullets, it was better than spitting at the un like he kne to use it There were four uniforuns, all ready to blast undead ass So asn&039;t I co silver bullets, except lass doors swooshed open autouns were trained on the door as itnot to shoot the dah Nervous, who us?

"All right," Dolph said, "there are civilians in here Don&039;t shoot any of them"

One of the uniforms was blond His partner was black and much older The other two uniforms were in their twenties: one skinny and tall with a prominent Adam&039;s apple, the other short with pale skin and eyes nearly glassy with fear

Each policeman had a cross-shaped tie tack They were the latest style and standard issue for the St Louis police The crosses would help, maybe even keep theeta char an anklet chain, not just because it ht, I wanted to have a backup

It&039;s sort of a tossup which I&039;d least like to live without, cross or gun Better to have both

"You got any suggestions about hoe should do this, Anita?" Dolph asked

It wasn&039;t too long ago that the police wouldn&039;t have been called in at all The good ol&039; days when vampires were left to a handful of dedicated experts Back when you could just stake a vamp and be done with it I had been one of the few, the proud, the brave, the Executioner

"We could for out It would up our chances of not getting snuck up on"

The blond cop said, "Won&039;t we hear it co?"

"The undead make no noise," I said

His eyes widened

"I&039;, officer," I said

"Hey," he said softly He sounded offended I guess I didn&039;t blame him

"Sorry," I said

Dolph frowned at me

"I said I was sorry"

"Don&039;t tease the rookies," Zerbrowski said "I bet this is his first vah and a snort "His first day, period"

"Jesus," I said "Can he wait out in the car?"

"I can handle myself," the blond said

"It&039;s not that," I said, "but isn&039;t there soainst vampires on the first day?"

"I can take it," he said

I shookday He should have been out directing traffic so dead

"I&039;ll take point," Dolph said "Anita to ers at the black cop and the blond "You two on my left" He pointed at the last two uniforms "Behind Ms Blake Zerbrowski, take the back"

"Gee, thanks, Sarge," he o, but I couldn&039;t "I&039;m the only one with silver ammo I should have point," I said

"You&039;re a civvie, Anita," Dolph said

"I haven&039;t been a civvie for years and you know it"

He looked at et killed, rass"

I smiled "I&039;ll try to remember that"

I stepped out in front, a little ahead of the others They forave ave the barest of nods It was tio inside Time to stalk the monster

Chapter 17

The walls were two-tone green Dark khaki on the botto as a sore tooth Huge steaher than reen, too They narrowed the hallway to a thin passageway

Electrical conduit pipes were a thinner silver shadow to the steaned for it

The walls were lu scraped first If you dug at the walls, layer after layer of different color would co Each color had its own history, its ownin the belly of a great ship Except instead of the roar of engines, you had the beat of nearly perfect silence There are sos in heavy folds St Louis City Hospital was one of those places

If I&039;d been superstitious, which I am not, I would have said the hospital was the perfect place for ghosts There are different kinds of ghosts The regular kind are spirits of the dead left behind when they should have gone to Heaven or Hell Theologians had been arguing over what the existence of ghosts meant for God and the church for centuries I don&039;t think God is particularly bothered by it, but the church is

Enough people had died in this place to hosts, but I&039;d never seen any personally Until a ghost wraps its cold arms around me, I&039;d just as soon not believe in it

But there is another kind of ghost Psychic i e It&039;s like an ees, sometimes just sound, sometimes just a shiver down your spine when you walk over a certain spot

The old hospital was thick with shivery places I personally had never seen or heard anything, but walking down the hallway you knew so just out of sight, just out of hearing, just out of reach Tonight it was probably a vampire

The only sounds were the scrape of feet, the brush of cloth, usThere was no other sound When it&039;s really quiet you start hearing things even if it&039;s just the buzz of your own blood pounding in your ears

The first corner loomed before o around the corner first Whatever lay around the bend, it was mine I hate it when I play hero

I went down on one knee, gun held in both hands, pointing up It didn&039;t do any good to stick un around the corner first I couldn&039;t shoot what I couldn&039;t see There are a variety of ways to go around blind corners, none of them foolproof Itshot or getting grabbed Since this was a va ht shoulder against the wall, took a deep breath, and threw myself forward I didn&039;t do a neat shoulder roll into the hallway I just sort of fell on un held two-handed out in front of me Trust me, this is the fastest way to be able to aim around a corner I wouldn&039;t necessarily advise it if theback

I lay in the hallway, heart pounding in ood neas there was no vampire The bad neas that there was a body

I ca the shadowed hallway for hints of , you don&039;t even hear it, you feel it in your shoulders and back, the fine hairs on the back of your neck Your body responds to rhyth can get you dead

"It&039;s clear," I said I was still kneeling in the un out, ready for bear

"You through rolling around on the floor?" Dolph asked

I glanced at hi there It was all right Really

The body earing a pale blue uniforold and black patch on the sleeve said "Security" The man&039;s hair hite Heavy jowls, a thick nose, his eyelashes like grey lace against his pale cheeks His throat was just so hts Blood splashed the green walls like a un in the ht hand I put my back to the left-hand wall and watched the corridor to either side until the corners cut ht was to keep us alive

Dolph crouched beside the body He leaned forward, doing a sort of push-up to bring his face close to the gun "It&039;s been fired"

"I don&039;t smell any powder near the body," I said I didn&039;t look at Dolph when I said it I was too busy watching the corridor for un&039;s been fired," he said His voice sounded rough, clogged

I glanced down at hiid with some kind of pain

"You know him, don&039;t you?" I said

Dolph nodded "Jier than you are He retired and couldn&039;t ot a job here" Dolph shook his head "Shit"

What could I say? "I&039;m sorry" didn&039;t cut it "I&039;m sorry as hell" was a little better but it still wasn&039;t enough Nothing I could think of to say was adequate Nothing I could do would make it better So I stood there in the blood-spattered hall and did nothing, said nothing