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Chapter 14

The as cool and smelled of rain I turned rowing things It s upward Ellie Quinlan&039;sshone like a soft yellow beacon Ellie had opened the s, but her father had turned on the lights She had met her vampire lover in darkness The better not to see hi corpse he was

I had the coverall back on, unzipped halfway so I could get to the Browning I&039;d only brought an inner pants holster for the Firestar, so I shoved it into a pocket of the coveralls Not handy for a quick draw, but better than not having it An inner pants holster just doesn&039;t ith a skirt on

Larry had his very own gun in a shoulder rig He stood beside et the straps more coood fit, but it isn&039;t really comfortable either It&039;s sort of like a bra They fit and they are necessary, but they are never co the extra coverall unzipped and flapping nearly to his hips A flashlight flicked over us, glinting on Larry&039;s cross The light swept over ht vision, get that dahter caht Two state cops had arrived just in time to join us on the hunt Oh, joy

"Wallace," a man&039;s voice said, "do what the lady says" The voice was deep and vaguely threatening A voice to say, "lean on the hood of the car and spread &039;eer walked up to us, his flashlight pointed at the ground He wasn&039;t as tall as Wallace, and a gut was beginning to creep over his belt, but heLike maybe he&039;d hunted in the dark before Maybe not va Maybe ht swi around us like an oversized firefly It wasn&039;t in ht vision

"Turn off the flashlight please," I said

Wallace took a step closer, loo over s A running back, ht now I just wanted him to back the fuck off er said He&039;d already clicked off his own

"I won&039;t be able to see a da," he protested

"Afraid of the dark?" I asked, s thing to do

Wallace turned on him "You think that&039;s funny?" He stepped up to Larry until they were al his size to intimidate But Larry&039;s like me; he&039;s been small all his life He&039;d been bullied by the best He stood his ground

"Are you?" Larry asked

"Am I what?" Wallace asked

"Afraid of the dark?"

Ani froet aith being a pain in the ass andat me Larry wasn&039;t so lucky

Wallace balled his hands into Larry&039;s coverall and lifted hi around spotlighting our ankles

Officer Granger stepped up close to them but didn&039;t touch Wallace Even in the dark you could see the tension in his shoulders and ar to hit hie

"Ease down, Wallace He didn&039;t , he just pulled Larry closer to hi over to put his face next to Larry&039;s A square of yellow light fell across his face Thelike it would pop out of his face There was a scar under the bone of his jawline A scar that disappeared into the collar of his jacket

Wallace nearly put his face nose to nose with Larry "I-a" Each as squeezed out

I stepped up close to him He was bent down to intimidate Larry, so I could whisper in his ear "Nice scar, Wallace"

He jumped like I&039;d bit him He released Larry so suddenly that Larry stu hand raised to so of Larry

He swung at me I swept his arht my knee up into his stoh and really hurt hiuys You don&039;t beat up on them I stepped back, out of reach, and hoped that one near miss had cooled him down I could have hurt him badly in the initial rush, but now he&039;d be ready Harder to hurt

He was nearly a foot taller than ht turned serious, I was in trouble I hoped I wouldn&039;t regret esture

Wallace ended on all fours near the shrubs by the house He got to his feet quicker than I wanted him to, but he stayed half bent over, hands on his knees He looked up at me I wasn&039;t sure what his expression meant, but it wasn&039;t co sort of look, as if I&039;d surprised hiht now, Wallace?" Granger asked

Wallace nodded Hard to talk after a good gut shot

Granger glanced at ht, Ms Blake?"

"I&039;m fine"

He nodded "Yes, you are"

Larrytoo close If Wallace came back at me, I would need more room to maneuver I knew that Larry ot Larry&039;s shooting up to speed, we&039;d have to work on some basic hand-to-hand techniques

Why was I training hiht? Because you don&039;t arh a beating froh a vampire attack Not if he couldn&039;t shoot

"Were you with hier shook his head "His first partner didn&039;t ot him?"

He nodded

Wallace stood up sort of slow He arched his back just a bit, as if working the kinks out "Nice shot," he said

I shrugged "It was ood shot I don&039;t have any excuses good enough for what I just did"

"No," I said, "you don&039;t"

He just looked down at the ground, then up "I don&039;t knohat made me do it"

"Let&039;s take a little walk" I started off into the dark without looking back, as if I had no doubt he&039;d follow me This technique works more often than you think it would

He followed ht, but bravely turned it off

I stopped just short of the woods and stared off into the trees, lettingin particular I letfor movement Anywind, but it was a general movement like ocean waves The trees weren&039;t orried ainst his thigh A soft whap, whap I wanted to tell him to stop but didn&039;t If it comforted him, I could live with it

I let the silence stretch between us The wind picked up, filling the night with a rushing, hurrying sound You could sripped the flashlight in both hands I could hear his intake of breath above the wind "What was that?"

"The wind," I said

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty much"

"What do you want?" he asked

"Is this the first vaone after since your partner&039;s death?"

He looked at er told you?"

"Yeah, but I saw your neck I was pretty sure what had done it"

I wanted to tell him it was okay to be scared Hell, I was scared, but he was a cop and a h to kno he&039;d take a pep talk from me But I had to know if he&039;d follow me into those woods I had to know if I could depend on him If he stayed this scared, I couldn&039;t

"What happened?" I asked Maybe talking about it right noas the wrong thing to do, but ignoring it wasn&039;t working very well

He shook his head "Headquarters says you&039;re in charge, Ms Blake Fine, I&039;ll do what I&039;m told But I don&039;t have to answer personal questions"

It was tooout of the overall, and I really didn&039;t want my arms trapped I undid one button on my blouse and spread the cloth

"What are you doing?"

"How good&039;s your night vision?"

"Why?"

"Can you see the scar?"

"What are you talking about?" He sounded suspicious Suspicious that I was crazy, ht vision would have picked it up, but most people don&039;t have my eyes "Give me your hand"

"Why?"

"I aive ly, glancing back at the waiting men

His hand was cold to the touch He was one scared puppy I traced his large, blunt fingers along my collarbone The moment he touched the scar tissue, his hand jerked like he&039;d had an electric shock I pulled ain on his own

He took his hand back, slowly, rubbing his fingers together like he was re the feel ofthat did your neck A vampire that wasn&039;t neat with its food"

"Jesus," he said

"Yeah," I said I rebuttoned my blouse "Tell me what happened, Wallace Please"

He looked at er, then nodded "Harry, ot a call that someone had found a body with its throat torn out" Heit in his head Watching it all happen again behind his eyeballs

"It was a construction site Just us in the hts There was a sound like histling, and so hit Harry He went doith a un out I fired into the man&039;s back I hit him solid three, four times He turned on me and his face was bloody I didn&039;t have tiun into hiround"

He took a deep breath, big hands twisting back and forth on the flashlight He was looking off into the trees, too, but not for vampires, or at least not for this one

"He ripped ht hiht ht me with his eyes, and when he tore into my neck, I wanted him to do it, wanted it worse than I&039;ve ever wanted anything in my life"

He turned a little away froh "When I woke up, he was just gone Harry was dead The girl was dead I was alive"

He turned to ht in the eyes and said, "Why didn&039;t he kill me, Ms Blake?"

I looked into his earnest eyes and didn&039;t have a good answer "I don&039;t know, Wallace He wanted to make you one of them, maybe I don&039;t knohy you and not Harry You ever catch him?"

"The local ized for his uncivilized behavior That&039;s what the note said, &039;uncivilized behavior&039;"

"It&039;s hard to look at it as murder when you feed off humans yourself"

"Do they all do that? Feed off people?"

"I&039;ve never met one that didn&039;t"

"Can&039;t they eat animals?"

"Theoretically, yes In practice it see was too close to sex for most vamps They weren&039;t into bestiality, so they didn&039;t feed off anio over ith Officer Wallace

"Can you do this, Wallace?"

"What do you o out into the dark and hunt vampires?"

"It&039;s my job"

"I didn&039;t ask if it was your job I asked if you can go out into that darkness and hunt vampires"

"You think there&039;s more than one?"

"Always best to assuuess so"

"Scared?" I asked

"Are you?"

I looked off into the ept night The trees tossed and moaned in the wind There was ht the stars gave would be gone

"Yeah, I&039;m scared"

"But you&039;re a vaht if it scares you?"

"Doesn&039;t it scare you to know that every time you pull over some yahoo for a traffic violation that he could be armed? You walk up on that car and never know"

"It&039;s my job"

"And this is my job"

"But you&039;re scared?"

"Down to my toes"

Larry called, "The sheriff&039;s back He&039;s got the warrant"

Wallace and I looked at each other "You got silver bullets?" I asked

"Yes"

I so You&039;ll be fine," I said I believed it Wallace would do his job I would do , some of us would be alive and some of us wouldn&039;t Of course, maybe there was just the one newly dead vaht all see the sunrise

But I hadn&039;t lived this long assu the worst was always safer And usually truer

Chapter 15

I&039;d gotten used to the sawed-off shotgun that I had at hoal, but it&039;s easy to carry and makes mincemeat out of vampires What more could a e was close