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Chapter 16

Detective Freemont sat on one end of the Quinlans&039; couch and I perched on the other We were as far away froet and share it Only pride kepta chair I wouldn&039;t flinch under her cool cop eyes So I stayed nailed to my end of the couch, but it was an effort

Her voice was low and careful, every word enunciated, as if she thought she ht yell if she rushed the words "Why didn&039;t you call and tell me you had a second vampire kill?"

"Sheriff St John called the state cops I assumed you&039;d be told"

"Well, I wasn&039;t"

I stared up into her cool eyes "You&039;re twentyinto a possible vampire kill Why wouldn&039;t they send you over to a second vampire scene?"

Freemont&039;s eyes shifted to one side, then back to me Her cool cop eyes had melted just a little It was hard to read for sure, but she looked uneasy Maybe even scared

"You haven&039;t told them it was a vampire kill, have you?"

Her eyes flinched

"Shit, Freemont I know you don&039;t want the Feds to steal your case, but withholding information from your own people Bet your superiors aren&039;t happy with you"

"That&039;s ot, more power to you, but why are you pissed atbreath and blew it out like a runner trying to get that extra kick "How sure are you the vampire used a sword?"

"You saw the body," I said

She nodded "A vampire could have ripped the neck apart"

"I saw a blade, Freemont"

"The ME will either back you up, or not"

"Why don&039;t you want this to be vaht I had this case all solved Thought I&039;dI didn&039;t think it was va "If it wasn&039;t vamps, then as it?"

"Fairies"

I stared at her for a heartbeat "What do you eant Storr, called nus Bouvier He&039;s got no alibi for the tis, and even you think he could have done it"

"Because he could have done it, doesn&039;t ed "He ran e tried to question him Innocent people don&039;t run"

"What do youhim, how could he run?"

Freeether so tightly her fingers were ic to cloud our ic?"

Freemont shook her head "What do you want me to say, Ms Preternatural Expert? Four of us sat there in his restaurant like idiots while he just walked out We didn&039;t even see hiet up from the table"

She looked at me, no smiles Her eyes were back to that neutral coolness You could stare all day at someone with eyes like that and keep all your secrets safe

"He looked huuy I wouldn&039;t have picked him out of a crowd How did you knohat he was?"

I opened my mouth, and closed it I wasn&039;t exactly sure how to answer the question "He tried to use gla"

"What&039;s gla a spell on you?"

"Glamor isn&039;t exactly a spell," I said I always hated explaining preternatural things to people who had no skill in the area It was like having quantum physics explained to me I could follow the concepts, but I had to take their word for it on the math The math was beyondquantu preternatural creatures et Freemont killed

"I&039;m not stupid, Blake Explain it to me"

"I don&039;t think you&039;re stupid, Detective Free with two unifor uy just walking along He pulled over, put hi a weapon, and anted in another state for armed robbery If I&039;d been in a roo by in a car, no way I wouldn&039;t have seen it Even his partner asked him how he spotted him He couldn&039;t explain so that we could do it, but he kne to do it"

"So it&039;s practice?" Freehed "In part, but hell, Detective, I raise the dead for a living I have so up"

"How the hell are we supposed to police creatures, Ms Blake? If Bouvier had pulled a gun, we&039;d have sat there and let him shoot us We just sort of woke up and he wasn&039;t there any like it"

"There are things you can do to protect yourself frolamor," I said

"What?"

"A four-leaf clover will break gla you by hand There are other plants you can wear, or carry that break glamor: Saint-John&039;s-wort, red verbena, daisies, rowan, and ash My choice would be an ointment made of either four-leaf clovers or Saint-John&039;s-wort Spread it on your eyelids, laet this stuff?"

I thought about that for a second "Well, in St Louis I&039;d knohere to go Here, try health-food stores and occult shops Any fairie ointment will be hard to find because we don&039;t have any fairies native to this country Ointment from four-leaf clovers is very expensive, and rare Try for the Saint-John&039;s-wort"

She sighed "Will this ointment work on any mind control, like for vamps?"

"Nope," I said "You could drop a vamp in a whole tub of Saint-John&039;s-wort and it wouldn&039;t give a daainst vampires, then?"

"Keep your cross, avoid eye contact, pray They can do things that&039;ll nus look like an a eye shadow on the ball of her thumb She suddenly looked tired "Hoe protect the public against so like that?"

"You don&039;t," I said

"Yes, we do," she said "We have to; it&039;s our job"

I didn&039;t knohat to say to that, so I didn&039;t try "So you thought it was Magnus because he ran, and he doesn&039;t have an alibi?"

"Why else would he run?"

"I don&039;t know," I said "But he didn&039;t do it I saw the thing in the woods It wasn&039;t Magnus Hell, I&039;ve only heard about va from shadows I&039;d never seen it before"

She looked at me "You&039;ve never seen it before That&039;s not co"

"It wasn&039;t nus, you can call off the warrant"

She shook her head "He useda crime That&039;s a class C felony"

"What was his cri"

"But he wasn&039;t under arrest"

"I had a warrant for his arrest," she said

"You didn&039;t have enough for a warrant," I said

"Helps to know the right judge"

"He didn&039;t kill those kids, or Coltrain"

"You pointed the finger at him," she said

"Just an alternate possibility With five people dead, I couldn&039;t afford to be wrong"

She stood "Well, you got your wish It was vanus Bouvier ran froic on a police officer is a felony"

"Even if he was innocent of the original cri hiic is a serious crime, Ms Blake There&039;s a warrant for his arrest You see hinus isn&039;t nice people, Detective Freemont I don&039;t knohy he ran, but if you put out the word that he used ic on cops, soerous, Ms Blake"

"Yeah, but so are a lot of people, Detective You don&039;t hunt them down and arrest theot prejudices, Ms Blake;once in a while At least here we knohat did it"

"Yeah," I said "We knohat did it"

"Do you knohen the girl&039;s body was taken?" she asked She got a notebook out of her coat pocket Down to business

I shook one when I went up"

"What made you think to check on the body?"

I looked at her Her eyes were pleasant and unreadable "They&039;d gone to a lot of trouble to et her They did"

"The father&039;snoises that he asked you to stake her body before you went out after the vampires Is that true?" Her voice was soft,attention to the answers She didn&039;t take as many notes as Dolph did The notebook see else I was finally seeing Free

"Yeah, that&039;s true"

"Why didn&039;t you stake the girl when the parents requested it?"

"I had a father A er His daughter and only child got bit He wanted her staked I did it that night, right away Nexther back as a va h a new vaood"

"I thought you had to take a vampire&039;s head to be sure"

"You do," I said "If I had staked the Quinlan girl, I would have taken out her heart, cut off her head" I shook my head "There isn&039;ton her note pad I couldn&039;t see what I was betting it was a doodle and not a word "I see why you wanted to wait, but Mr Quinlan is talking about suing you"

"Yeah, I know"

Freeht you&039;d want to know"

"Thanks"

"We haven&039;t found the boy&039;s body yet"

"I don&039;t think you will," I said

Her eyes didn&039;t look pleasant anymore They looked narrow and suspicious "Why?"

"If they wanted to kill hiht I think they want to make hied "I don&039;t know But usually when a vampire takes this personal an interest in a family, there&039;s a reason for it"

"You mean a motive?"

I nodded "You&039;ve seen the Quinlans They&039;re devout Catholics The church sees vampirism as suicide Their children will be damned for all eternity if they beco them," she said

"To the Quinlans, I think so"

"You think the vaht about that for a minute "Hell, I don&039;t know I al you had some cases where a master vamp would take out entire families Soe for soal, I don&039;t knohy the vamp would do it I mean, the vampire can take them to court What could the Quinlans have done that was bad enough for this?"

The doors opened Freemont turned, a frown already in place Two men appeared in the doorway They were both dressed in dark suits, dark ties, white shirts Standard federal issue One was short and white, the other tall and black That alone should have made them look different, but there was a sameness to them, like the same cookie cutter had been used no matter hoell cooked the outside was

The shorter of the two flipped his badge at us "I&039;ent Elwood Which one of you is Detective Freemont?"

Free she was unarht "I&039;m Detective Free included in the introductions I stood up and joined the fourso ti wrong, Agent Bradford?"

He shook his head "I attended Sergeant Storr&039;s lectures at Quantico The way he talked about you, I thought you&039;d be bigger" He smiled when he said it, halfway between friendly and condescending

A lot of scathing co contest with the Feds You&039;ll lose "Sorry to disappoint you"

"We&039;ve already talked with Officer Wallace He ed "Hard to make me sound shorter"

He smiled "We&039;d like to speak with Detective Freeo far; we&039;ll want a statement from you and your associate, Mr Kirkland"

"Sure"

"I took Ms Blake&039;s statement personally," Freeht"

Bradford looked at her "I think we&039;ll be the judge of that"

"If Ms Blake had called round, there wouldn&039;t be two dead policemen, and a dead civilian," Freemont said

I just looked at her So, and Freemont didn&039;t want it to be hers Fine

"Don&039;t forget theboy," I said Everyone looked at ers, fine; there&039;s enough blao around If you hadn&039;t chased ht have called you in, but I did call the state police If you&039;d told your superiors everything I told you, they&039;d have connected the two cases, and you&039;d have been here anyway"

"I had enough men with me to cover the house and the civilians," Free me cost lives"

I nodded "Probably But you&039;d have coain You&039;d have taken St John and his people out in the dark with five vampires, one of them ancient, when all you&039;ve seen is pictures of vahtered you, but maybe, just maybe, Beth St John would be alive Maybe Jeff Quinlan would still be here"

I stared up at her, and watched the anger drain from her eyes We looked at each other "It took both of us to fuck this one up, Sergeant" I turned back to the two agents "I&039;ll wait outside"

"Wait," Bradford said "Storr said that soal vampire community will help on a case like this Who do I talk to down here?"

"Why would they hunt down one of their own?" Agent Elwood asked

"This kind of shit is bad for business Especially right noith Senator Brewster&039;s daughter getting killed Vampires don&039;t need any al They like the fact that killing them is murder"

"So who do I talk to?" Bradford asked

I sighed "In this area, I don&039;t know I&039;o about finding out who to talk to?"

"I ht be able to help you there"

"How?"

I shook ht know a naive you a hard ti with cops It just hasn&039;t been that long ago that the police shot the the vampires will talk to you and not to us?" Elwood said

"So like that"

"That makes no sense You&039;re a vampire executioner Your job is to kill them Why would they believe you and not us?" he asked

I didn&039;t kno to explain it, and wasn&039;t sure I wanted to "I also raise zoent Elwood I think they sort of consider h you&039;re their version of an electric chair"

"Even though"

"That&039;s not logical"

I laughed then; I couldn&039;t help it "God, has anything that happened here tonight been logical?"

Elwood gave a very sed hiotten over the thought that FBI agents don&039;t s information from the FBI, would you, Ms Blake?" Bradford asked

"If I come up with a vaive you the name"

Bradford stared at me "How about if you coive us the names Let us worry about whether they&039;ll talk to us or not"

I looked at him for a heartbeat and lied "Sure" If I expected the ive them all over to the cops Only a select few

He looked like he didn&039;t believe me, but couldn&039;t quite call me a liar to my face "When we find the vampires responsible, we&039;ll be sure to call you in for the kill"

That was ht was looking up "Beep eant Freemont now, Ms Blake" I was dismissed Fine with ent Elwood and I shook Everyone s out in the entryway He got up off the stairs where he&039;d been sitting "What now?"

"I need to make a phone call"

"Who to?"

Two ent" tattooed on their foreheads walked up the hallway from the direction of the kitchen I shook ht The place arents in my life But hey, the very first vampire serial killer was news Everyone would want a piece Watching everyone mill around on the carefully tended lawn, I suddenly wanted to go hoo home It was still early Hours and hours left of darkness It only seeraveyard Hell, there&039;d be ti&039;s boneyard before dawn

I got in the jeep that Bayard had loaned us I&039;d use the nifty portable phone it caer side