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THE AMBULANCE TOOK Perry aith his aret it We&039;d found the other officer dead with a host of vampire bites on his torn and bloody clothes They&039;d take bite i vampires, and if their bite marks matched the wounds it was an autos, whichwith holy objects, staked and beheaded while they were "dead" to the world They were already caught, so there was no need for a hunt I wondered if they understood that they were as good as dead; I doubted it, or they wouldn&039;t have given up They&039;d have fought, right? I hting?
Once we had more police on site than we knehat to do with, I found a spare rooear I trusted Zerbrowski to alert ot out of hand, but I had to change in order to keep the Preternatural Endangerment Act in effect Another US Marshal of the Preternatural Branch had ended up on trial for e into his gear when he had the opportunity The idea behind the act is that the Marshal can, in effect, create his oarrant of execution on the fly in the middle of the action The act came into law after lives were lost because several Marshals who had been trying to get a warrant of execution, but hadn&039;t been granted one yet, had hesitated to kill vaes They could have faced serious charges, or at least lost their badges, for killing legal citizens who just happened to be va thee, ould probably have been in the clear on the shootings, eventually, but while the investigation was ongoing we uns, which meant that I wouldn&039;t have been able to do any ation
There weren&039;t enough Marshals in the Preternatural Branch to spare us every time we had to kill someone; it was, after all, our job But erment Act covered the police withas I invoked, and ith the police, then it was green-light city for all the bad guys They&039;d tried to enact it so that only the vampire executioner, personally, could kill without a warrant, but that had made local police reluctant to be backup for the Marshals, and since ot people killed, too Law is almost always made by people ill never see that law in action in a real-world situation; it
One of the first cases to test the use of the act in the field had come down to the fact that the Marshal involved had not put on all his gear, which he was legally forced to wear once he was actively hunting monsters with a warrant of execution in effect The lawyers had successfully argued that if the Marshal had truly believed the situation eared up appropriately once he had tiear? He obviously hadn&039;t felt it was the same as a real warrant of execution; he had simply invoked the act so he could play Wild West and kill everything in the rooed, but were declared free before the trial started, because they had acted in good faith, believed the Marshal&039;s judgment to be sound, and didn&039;t have the preternatural expertise to uilty and the case was in appeals, but he was in a cell while the lawyers argued
It did e of clothes withshoes, underwear, and bra The undies were for those h blood on me that it soaked my clothes to the skin I had a coverall, too, but that was s I put the protective vest on over the T-shirt, because otherwise it rubbed The vest had MOLLE attach BDM went to h so it didn&039;t un to be absolutely where your body memory could kick in - seconds counted I had the Smith & Wesson M&P9c in a holster attached across rab and pull it smoother and faster I had a new sheath attached to the back of the vest with the MOLLE grips for the big knife that had enough silver content to slice anything,as ain with high silver content Extra auns was on ht I had one AR on a tactical sling I still had e I didn&039;t have to sweat the barrel length restrictions for carrying, so I had an AR modified to be a door-kicker for close indoor action
I had warned our prisoners that I was going to change into ear, because the law forcedthe violence The first tiear the vaht I was going to kill hi to do just that, when I probably could have brought hiood idea until you try them out in real life, and then you find the flaws, and sometimes people die because of it
The vampires had wide eyes, and some looked pretty spooked, but they didn&039;t freak I&039;d warned them I&039;d helped take the first handful of them down in the ancient elevator to the reinforced transport van that we had for preternatural criminals We had one van that could hold up to the kind of strength vah metal - one Which ular handcuffs and shackles, just like the ones that Barney the vaation room Technically I was supposed to take the heads and hearts of the four dead va it while the other va for the to lose, and that noas the best chance they had to fight their way free, so I aiting Not everyone see
Lieutenant Billings was taller thanboots, so was everyone in the roolad I had the boots with my vampire kit in the car They didn&039;t exactly match the skirt suit, but I was still happy not to be barefoot Billings see six feet and built like a hard,overinto my face "I want you to do your job, Marshal Blake!"
"I did my job, Lieutenant," and I round beside us
"No, you did part of your job, Blake" He was so close toover and down above uy this big up in their face like this; me, not so much I spent tooup in ry, just didn&039;t have the same impact Also, there was a part of er, the way a wine enthusiast could be attracted to a fine bottle of wine I could taste his rage on the roof of my mouth, like I&039;d already drunk a bit of it, and all I had to do was ue and I&039;d be able to s it down I&039;d acquired the ability to feed on the energy of anger; it was a type of energy vaht up to it, so it wouldn&039;t have been illegal to drink down all that rage, but if any of the supernorht have raised questions And Billings would certainly have noticed that his emotions had been er helped me keep my own temper, and not mind his so much
My voice was cal face I gave him back peaceful, because I didn&039;t want to feed into his rage, and I didn&039;t want to be any er than I already was Both the dead officers had been hisas he was raving at rief People will do a lot to keep that first rush of true, storief at bay, because once you feel it, it&039;s like it never really leaves, not until the process is corief Denial is the first stage When you&039;ve seen the bodies dead at your feet, it&039;s hard not to skip that one, but you don&039;t always go to the next step in order Grief isn&039;t a neat series of stages You can juet stuck at one point or the other, and you even get to revisit stages you&039;ve already finished Grief isn&039;t a neat, orderly kind of thing It&039;s s wanted to yell at so personal, I knew that I stood in the face of his yelling and let it flow over h me I didn&039;t buy into it, I truly didn&039;t take it personally I&039;d had too many people scream in round People wanted revenge, they thought it would make them feel better; sometimes it did, sometimes it didn&039;t
"I&039;ll finish the job, Billings, but we need to clear out the prisoners first"
"I heard you&039;d gone soft; guess it&039;s true"
I raised an eyebrow at him
Zerbrowski left the uniforuard the va RPIT officer on site He called out, als, Anita killed the three vaot a piece of one, but it was her shots that were the kills for all three How much harder do you want her to be?" His face was as open and friendly as his tone He understood what it was like to lose people, too
Billings turned on hioddamn job!"
"She will," Zerbrowski said, and esture with one hand "She will, just as soon as we clear out so a finger at the chained va to happen to their friends I want the! I want the to each and every daoddamned bloodsuckers can kill cops in St Louis and not die for it! Not here, not in our town They are fucking going to die for this, and I want Blake to do her fucking job and show those motherfuckers what they have to look forward to!" He finished the last sentence bent into Zerbrowski&039;s face, so close that spittle got on his glasses
"Coo for a walk" Zerbrowski touched his aret him to move away fros, whose first name was apparently Ray, jerked back fro va fear God, they were all so recently dead that it was like watching huuard stepped in front of hi "Lieutenant"
Billings pushed hih that the smaller officer stumbled His hand went to his baton, but he couldn&039;t use it on a lieutenant, and with five inches of height and at least fifty pounds of s&039;s favor, short of harsh physical measures the officer was out of options Fuck
Billings grabbed one of the closest prisoners in his big hands and dragged his didn&039;t believe he was a kid any s!" If he heard me, he didn&039;t show it Zerbrowski yelled, "Ray!" There was other yelling, but he didn&039;t see arrabbing his ared to get there in tiet there before he hit the prisoner, but I wasn&039;t fast enough to get in front of the punch, and I didn&039;t weigh enough to stop hi with the force of his swing the way s on their father&039;s arms I threw his balance off, so that he didn&039;t hit the boy He let go of the boy, who fell to the floor, unable to catch hi frorabbed a handful ofme across the room, and I just reacted I let myself do what I&039;d been tee touched h the h the twist of his fingers inand solid beside er as he breathed heavy and loud, through the pounding of his heart, the pulse and beat of his blood, and as I sed the thick, red fire of his rage, I smelled his skin so close: sweat, and the scent of his fear, which hat lay under all that anger Beyond that I s just under the bitter sweetness of his anger, so that Billings was like a piece of cupcake with dark bittersweet chocolate icing that could be licked away, to the warm, moist cake, and then the hot, liquid center where the sweetest, thickest chocolate lay waiting like soer even tastier All I had to do was bite through that sweet, slightly salty skin of his wrist that was just abovepulse so close to my hands, where they encircled his aro of round His eyes were open wide; his face tried to frown as if he were struggling to reently on the floor
"Where are we?" he asked
I was still holding his ar on "We&039;re at the old brewery," I said, and I didn&039;t like that he didn&039;t knohere he was; it made me wonder what else he didn&039;t reer before and never had anyone forget things
He wrapped his big hand around one of my small ones, and blinked at the vampire that was crumpled at his feet "Why are these people shackled?"
Jesus, he didn&039;t res, what&039;s the last thing you remember?"
He frowned at me, and the effort of concentration was visible on his face and in the pressure of his hand, tense around mine His eyes were a little scared, and he just shook his head Shit
Zerbroas there with Smith and soo for a walk"
"A walk?" Billings made it a question
"Yeah," he said, and touched Billings&039;s ars just nodded, but he didn&039;t let go of me
Zerbrowski pulled on his ars moved, but he also kept ht now," Zerbrowski said, and he looked at ed, and I knew he understood ht even believe that I didn&039;t knohat I&039;d done to the big lieutenant
Billings was reluctant to let go of ood either I&039;d done er, and way ed to get Billings to let go of o with him, but he mouthed, Later We&039;d talk later, I kneould Double shit
The vampire on the floor said, "Thank you"
I looked down at hirayer at the y, as if when it was a little longer it would be wavy, and was struggling to do it even short, so that his hair lookedfor his face or his face too thin for the thick hair His jean jacket and rock band T-shirt untucked over jeans and jogging shoes e boys, except for the odd haircut, and the strangely too-thin face I realized it seeh, and then I realized what it was; he hadn&039;t fed tonight He was so recently dead that his skin hadn&039;t lost the human tan he&039;d died with, so he didn&039;t look too pale, but I could feel that he hadn&039;t fed on blood tonight This one, at least, hadn&039;t had a piece of the cop we&039;d found eaten by dozens of fangs
I looked past hier None of thery, and they were all very recently dead, their skins still kissed with the sun Fresh-risen va from corpse-like to nearly huht you over, theon the bloodline that your uys over was powerful, very powerful The vairl hadn&039;t been, not even close, and all the vary I could feel it; in fact, I&039;d been picking it up without realizing it It had s That shouldn&039;t have been able to happen unless someone connected to Jean-Claude hadof Jean-Claude&039;s bloodline enough, or had one of our people fully blood-oathed to us done this horrible thing? And it was horrible Six of the surviving vaer, tweens They were all children, all too young for that secondary growth spurt They&039;d all been brought over before they finished puberty It was forbidden to bring children over, and their faces staring up at me were all borderline, and all recently dead Fuck, and double fuck