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The two-biter, as Dolph so poetically put it, was a sht ponytail leaving her neck and the vampire bites painfully visible Vampire freaks, people who just liked va outs Human members of the Church of Eternal Life almost always ht, short sleeves if the marks were at wrist or elbow bend They were proud of the bites, saw the er, the skin redder and more torn Someone hadn&039;t been neat with their food The second ically neat The two-biter&039;s na herself as if she were cold Since you could probably fry eggs on the sidewalk, I didn&039;t think she was cold, or at least not that kind of cold

"You wanted to seeup and down like one of those dogs you used to see in the backs of cars "Yes," she said, voice breathy She stared at Dolph and McKinnon, then back at h She wanted privacy

"I&039; to take Caroline for a little walk If that&039;s okay?"

Dolph nodded McKinnon said, "The Red Cross have coffee and soft drinks" He pointed to a s coffee and comfort to the cops and firemen You didn&039;t see them at every crihthim back any info that pertained to the crime The fact that he still trusted hter Nice that so soetwas stalled Fulton just wasn&039;t eager to risk his people for corpses But that wasn&039;t it If there&039;d been six huoing in But they weren&039;t human, and no ht, before Addisonv Clark, they&039;d have gotten a fire crew in here to make sure it didn&039;t spread to the other houses, but they&039;d have let it burn Standard operating procedure

But that was four years ago, and the world had changed Or so we told ourselves If the vamps weren&039;t in coffins and the roof collapsed, they would be exposed to sunlight, and that would be it The firemen had used an axe on the wall next to the stairs so I could see the second vamp corpse It was crispy-crittered but not dust I had no explanation for why the body had remained so intact I wasn&039;t even a hundred percent sure that cohtfall it wouldn&039;t heal It¨Ceven I still did it But the body was so badly burned, like black sticks and brown leather, thethe teeth, corimace that looked like pain Firemen Wren had explained to h to break bones so about death, you find out you&039;re wrong

I had to think of the body as an "it" or I couldn&039;t look at it Caroline had known the va of the body as an it

She got a soft drink froot a Coke, which meant it was pretty damn hot for me to pass on the coffee

I led her to the front yard of a neighboring house where no one had come out to check the scene The drapes were all closed, driveway en of life was a triangular rose bed and a black stail butterfly floating over it Peaceful For a moment I wondered if the butterfly was one of Warrick&039;s pets, but there was no feel of power It was just a butterfly floating like a tiny tissue-paper kite over the yard I sat down on the grass Caroline joinedher pale blue shorts down in back as if she wasskirts She took a drink of soda Now that she had me to herself, she didn&039;t seeht have worked better if I&039;d waited for her to begin, but o It wasn&039;t one of in with "What did you want to tell me?" I asked

She sat her can of soda carefully on the grass, thin hands s the hem of her shorts She had pale pink nail polish on her short nails that matched the pink stripes in her tank top Better than pale blue, I guess

"Can I trust you?" she asked in a voice as fragile and pale as she see asked questions like that I wasn&039;t in the mood to lie "Maybe It depends on what you want to trust me with"

Caroline looked a little startled, as if she&039;d expected me to just say, sure "That was very honest of you Most people lie without thinking about it" So in the way she said it made me think that Caroline had been lied to often, by people she&039;d trusted

"I try not to lie, Caroline, but if you have information that&039;ll help us here, you need to tell me" I took a drink of my own soda and tried to appear casual, forced my body not to tense up, not to sho much I wanted to simply scream at her until she told me whatever it was Short of torture, you can&039;t make people talk, not really Caroline wanted to tell me her secrets I just had to be caler or abusive, she&039;d either fold and tell all, or clao, so you try patience first You can always browbeat them later

"I&039;ve been the huuardian who oversaw the younger ones was Giles He was strong and powerful, but he was trapped in his coffin until true darkness Then two nights ago he woke in the middle of the day The first tier vampires"

She looked ather soft voice even further I had to lean into her just to catch her voice, close enough that er ones has been dead two years Do you understand what that means?"

"It ht hours It means that the one on the stairs should have been burnt to ashes"

"Exactly," she said She sounded relieved to finally find so restricted to your halfway house?"

She shook her head, whispering now We had our heads together like first-graders talking in class I was close enough to see the fine red lines in her eyes Caroline had been losing sleep over so "Every house and all the churches were suddenly having va ones" Her hand went to her neck and the uardians"

"Anyone have any theories as to why this was happening?" I asked

"Malcol with theht be interfering with the vaet et Caroline&039;s answers "He have any ideas about who?"

"You know about our illustrious visitors?" she asked, voice even lower, as if she were afraid to say the last

"If you mean the Vampire Council, I&039;ve met them"

She jerked back from me then, shocked "Met them," she said "But Malcoled "They paid their respects to the Master of the City first"

"Malcolm said they would contact us when they were ready He saw their con that the rest of vampirekind was ready to embrace the true faith"

I wasn&039;t about to sit there and tell her why the council had really come to town If the Church didn&039;t know, they didn&039;t need to know "I don&039;t think the council thinks ion, Caroline"

"Why else would they coed "The council has its reasons" See, not a lie, cryptic as hell, but not a lie

She seemed to accept the statement Maybe she was used to cryptic bullshit "Why would the council want to hurt us?"

"Maybe they don&039;t see it as hurting"

"If the fire ones and they ithout a guardian" She drew her knees to her chest, hugging her legs "They&039;ll rise like revenants, mindless beasts, until they&039;ve fed People could be dead before they come to themselves"

I touched her shoulder "You&039;re scared of them, aren&039;t you?" I&039;d never met a human church member as scared of va blood as a human liaison

She lowered the neckline of her tank top until I could see the tops of her small breasts There was a bite mark on the pale flesh of one breast that lookedbite than one made by a vampire The flesh had bruised badly, as if the vamp had been pulled off her al

"Giles had to pull hi into his face, I knew that if Giles hadn&039;t been there, he&039;d have killedme over or embrace me, but just because I was food" She let her top slide back over the wound, hugging herself tight, shivering in the hot July sunshine

"How long have you been with the Church, Caroline?"

"Two years"

"And this is the first time you&039;ve been scared?"

She nodded

"They&039;ve been very careful around you, then"

"What do youthe scars "The nawed on me He broke the arm I was lucky not to lose the use of it"

"What about that?" She touched the claw marks that trailed down the lower part of the arm

"Shapeshifted witch"

"How did the cross get burned into your arht it was a theht"

Her eyes ide "But the vampires in the Church aren&039;t like that We aren&039;t like that"

"All vamps are like that, Caroline Some of them control it better than others, but they still have to feed off hu that you see as food"

"But you are with the Master of the City Do you believe that of hiht about that and answered truthfully "Soht I knehat I wanted What I was going to do for all eternity Now I don&039;t know anything I feel so lost" Tears trailed out of her wide eyes

I putto me with her small, carefully painted hands She cried soundlessly, only the shakiness of her breathing betraying her

I held her and let her cry If I took the nice firemen down into the darkness and six newly dead vampires rose as revenants, either the firemen were dead or I&039;d be forced to kill the vampires Either way, not a in situation

We needed to find out if the vamps were alive, needed so the proble bad vaenerally turn to the to save vampires lives here, not just human Maybe they&039;d help Maybe they wouldn&039;t, but it couldn&039;t hurt to ask All right, it could hurt to ask, and probably would

43

Even over the phone, I could tell Jean-Claude was shocked at uess He was literally speechless It was nearly a first

"Why not ask for their help?"

"They are the council, ma petite," he said, voice almost breathy with emotion

"Exactly," I said "They are the leaders of your people Leadership doesn&039;t just "

"Tell that to your politicians in Washington in their three-thousand-dollar suits," he said

"I didn&039;t say that we did any better That&039;s beside the point They&039;ve helped make this probleht "Unless they&039;re doing it on purpose," I said

He gave a long sigh "No, ma petite, it is not on purpose I did not realize that it was happening to the others"

"Why isn&039;t it happening to our vahed "Our vampires, ma petite?"

"You knohat I mean"

"Yes,our people"

"Don&039;t take this wrong, but I&039; with your people"

"In truth, ma petite, so am I"

"So you&039;re more powerful than Malcolm now?"

"It would appear so," he said quietly

I thought about that for a er? Why would the council want that to be happening?"