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POLICE OFFICERS GO radio silent for a lot of reasons, including equipet SWAT called out, or anything much except s, unless preternatural citizens are involved Words like vampire, olf, wereleopard, zombie, et cetera, can be an automatic rollout for our special teaenuine situation, not just a maybe one Some of the a warrant of execution on a vampire that had moved into our toith a live warrant from another state He&039;d killed the last Marshal who tried to "serve" the warrant, so the warrant had been electronically transferred to the Marshal as next up in the rotation here, which made it Larry&039;s warrant A warrant of execution was always considered a no-knock warrant, whichthrough the door I&039;d started Larry&039;s training, but the FBI had finished it; he was all grown up now, ht feeling in erous There was also aof deaths, so SWAT was going in with that one, too St Louis is a sh et it until we had proof so bad had happened Until then it was just the officers originally dispatched to the scene and us, RPIT Frankly, I preferred it that way soht was strobed with blue and red lights as Zerbrowski and I pulled up There were no sirens, just the lights In the hts, but soet out of the cars, it&039;s quiet, just the colored lights swirling over and over the huge brick buildings and empty brick courtyard In the 1800s the brewery had been one of the major employers in the city, but it had been abandoned for years So to convince people it could be condos and office space, but mostly it rented out for photo and video shoots The two police cars looked empty Where were the cops ith the their radios?

Detectives Clive Perry and Brody Sot out of their car Perry was tall, slender, neatly but conservatively dressed He was African Ahts made it seehts painted him blue and red Perry was almost six feet, S-distance runner, all height and slender frame; Smith&039;s shoulders were broad and he was built like soh Smith&039;s white shirt was open at the collar, no tie, and his jackets always fit wrong through his shoulders, as if he had trouble finding suits that fit theht They say opposites attract, or at least ell together, and Perry and S, and Smith the supernormal - which sounded better than psychic, or witch Sra in which cops with some psychic ability were trained up so they could use their talents for ut What had surprised the top brass had been how many cops were psychic, but it hadn&039;t surprised s, instinct, and most of them will tell you it&039;s kept them and their partners alive When tested, it turned out ut instinct" was latent psychic ability Smith could sense the monsters once they used some sort of ability When a lycanthropy suspect started to shapeshift, Smith would sense it and warn everyone, or warn the suspect not to do it He could sense vampires once they went all vampire-wiles on your ass He was better with the furry than the undead He could sense when so certain psychic abilities, like when I searched for the undead As psychics went, Smith was pretty mild, or they hadn&039;t found his true ability It was sort of a wait and see

Zerbrowski and I weren&039;t officially partners US Marshals didn&039;t usually have official partners, and Preternatural Branch, never But I&039;d probably worked with Zerbrowski le cop over the years We knew each other I&039;d been invited over to his house for dinners with his wife and kids, and last cookout he&039;d letmy tereleopard live-in sweeties Twoin sin with both of the them to his house with his family and a bunch of other cops and their faht never confide our deepest darkest secrets in each other, but ere cop-friends It&039;s like work-friends, but you get each other&039;s blood on you, and keep each other alive But when I went out with RPIT they did try to pair h to score on the tests

We checked the two cars, found them empty, and I just said it: "We have to assu the Preternatural Endangerment Act, that is; it was a loophole in the new, more vampire-friendly laws that allowed Marshals of the Preternatural Branch to use lethal force if they thought hu for a warrant of execution At least two officersfrom their cars, maybe more if either ride had two officers apiece, they were either hurt or dead, and there was still the irl If anted anyone left alive, we needed to be able to shoot the vampires

"You&039;re not supposed to invoke until we know for sure soe situation," Perry said He was all about the rules, our Clive

"We have to assume the officers are hurt, or worse, Clive," Zerbrowski said "Anita&039;s within her rights to invoke the Preternatural Endangerment Act, which means she, and anyone with her, can use lethal force to save hu for a warrant of execution" Zerbroas the highest-ranking officer on site, and he was backing me Clive did what the rule-lovers do, he followed the rules Later he could tell himself he&039;d tried to prevent the bloodshed, but he was technically clean on it He nodded, and said, "You&039;re in charge, Sergeant"

Zerbrowski let it go at that, and turned to me "Sic &039;e, but let it go His grin was enough; he&039;d make a joke with his last breath, and after a while you had to let the so, or he wore you down

"Giveto sneak up on the va ht sense the power, and then they&039;d knoere co, but with the

In the interrogation roo out, and only after that on purpose There was nothing accidental about this Most people who raise the dead - anis if you&039;re being rude - have to do ritual to raise the dead They need a circle of power, ointment, ritual tools, a blood sacrifice, and even then, they&039;re lucky to raise one zo bad powers out of my zombies, and the blood sacrifice justbut my power I could raise the dead If I used all the accoutrements of the profession I could raise cemeteries I&039;d kept that part to myself as much as possible, because no one, absolutely no one, should be able to do that - not even me

I didn&039;t so much try to conjure up my necromancy as release it The best I could describe it was like having a fist inon to ers, spreading o that tension that was al out a breath I always had to hold, and finally being able to be free

Maybe for soic and that hy they needed all the tools and ointments, but for me it was a psychic ability, and all I had to do was unleash it My necro outward from me It didn&039;t actually move so much as a hair on anyone&039;s head, so ht word, but I could feel it seeking outward fros in water when you throw a pebble into it, except I was the pebble, and the power tended to be a littleI could "feel" behindI had no idea why

Smith shivered beside me, and Clive Perry actually took a step back fro, but I&039;d learned that his grandmother, like mine, had practiced as a Vaudun priestess, except his had been a bad person and mine hadn&039;t been It had made him skittish around me, but not have a problem with Smith

I searched for the undead My power never even hesitated at a truly dead body It was as if my power saw it the saht a hint of vae of my attention, and I&039;d learned to directhound I followed that "feeling," that energy, and if the pull got stronger, then it was vahouls, or zombies, or just a place where vaer, and nowpulled

"This way," I said They&039;d all been with me before on hunts; they knew that once the power found the vampires it was a race A race to see if we found theuns out and we ran Running over the brick in the stilettos o first, because I was the only one who knehere ere going I moved up on the balls of un pointed at the ground I loved Nathaniel, but I was going to have to stop letting my stripper boyfriend dress me for work I had a moment to realize I hadn&039;t cleaned off the one heel after it went in the vampire&039;s chest They&039;d sht even knoas Barney&039;s blood I wondered if they&039;d think I killed hih and piteous, echoing off the buildings We ran faster, and somehow I knew the "feel" of vampires would be in the same direction as the screauys are in upper stories because there are only tays up, elevator or stairs, and either way they know you&039;re coht elevator, which was the only elevator in the place, was a uns No way

That left the stairs, which were so narrow, dark, and dank that given a choice I&039;d not have gone into them Another scream sounded from above us and there was no choice, so ent up The steps were so narrow and steep I had to kick the stilettos off, and the moment my bare feet touched the chilled, damp steps, I slipped because of the hose Shit!

There was just enough room for Smith and Perry to ease past us, while I sat down on the steps and unfastened the hose froun in hand, watching up and down the stairs He neverremark as I slid the hose down and left them crumpled on the steps When Zerbrowski s were serious

I stood up, rime on the steps, but I didn&039;t slip as I followed Zerbrowski up Still, I went up with rip, the other hand on the wall, just in case I srabbed his arether by the narrow stone walls I used two fingers to point not at my eyes, but at the tip of , and that soo first Zerbrowski also knew that I was harder to hurt than he was, and let uy, the h thanks to the va on the steps in a thick, darkening pool; at the top of that pool was a uniforlad I didn&039;t know hi it His pale eyes stared wide and sightless, his face frozen in death His throat was savaged on one side so there was no way to check for a pulse; it was gone, torn out

Shoe prints otten past this point I tried not to step in the blood with my bare feet, but couldn&039;t avoid it all unless I wanted to cli to do that, and the blood was thick and squishy I forcedup the steps to help the others There was at least oneon whether he&039;d been riding with a partner I concentrated on the living and left the dead for later, but it was hard to ignore the blood sticking to the stone with every step I took Perry and Smith&039;s bloody footprints went up, too There was no way not to track the crih-pitched screairl, and I could hear words: "Don&039;t hurt them! Don&039;t hurt anyone else!"

I didn&039;t look back at Zerbrowski to check, I just started running up the steps They were so steep, ravity so low, that it was faster to use my free hand to help o up a stone hill, so that when I suddenly spilled out the opening into the huge roounshot shattered the stone above my head, and notto find the shot and return fire I saw the standing figure, gun in hand, and had already sighted and fired at his chest before ht up to the fact that his other hand held the girl&039;s aret away froirl with hi hiun around Another gun exploded in the room and the va forabout it He stopped trying to grab listened Zerbroas standing in the doorway, gun pointed at the fallen vampire I wasn&039;t sure if he&039;d shot hie industrial-sized un was pointed that way, too I caught a gliround beside him Smith had him behind cover, which was unshot h the doorway, but I was too far away; I turned and found a boy with a gun in his hand He was standing there, so straight, so tall, so arrogant, as he took his time and aimed at me I shot him in the chest before he could finish He crumpled around the wound and then fell to his side Another teenager rushed forward to grab the gun fro stance and shot hi, "They&039;re kids, Anita, they&039;re just kids!" He was still behind cover; I wasn&039;t

I yelled out, "Touch a gun, you die! Hurt anyone, you die! Are we clear?"

There were sullenmurderer Some of theers in the group, but there were also adults In fact, we had varoup "Hands where we can see them, now!"

They raised their hands up, soh, others barely out "Hands on your head"

Some of them looked confused by the request Zerbrowski said, "Hands on your heads, just like you see on TV, come on, you kno to do it"

I stood up, keepinga peripheral eye on the first one I&039;d shot The girl hiet his hand off her arm, but either his hands had seized up in death or he wasn&039;t quite dead One silver-plated nine-millimeter bullet in the chest doesn&039;t always kill a vampire

The vampires in the shadows did what Zerbrowski told them S a little He wasn&039;t dead - good - and he wasn&039;t hurt enough for Smith to feel he needed to keep pressure on the wound, or whatever had happened to hiirl and the first vampire She looked up at o," she said She was trying to peel just one finger back so she could get away His hand stayed closed Vampires died weirder than humans; sometimes they seized up, but I went slow and careful,almost no sound on the dirty floorboards But he was a vampire; he&039;d hear my heartbeat There was really no way to sneak up on the with hiun aiet away now and ran away froet comfort, but I needed to make sure he ell and truly dead, and unarmed, so I pushed her away, told her, "Go to the others Go!" I pushed her too hard, and she fell, but I was un was still in his hand I needed it not to be